


there is something wrong with you

by Hazzafagga



Category: One Direction
Genre: Alone, Angst, Bladder cancer, Cancer, Character Death, Depression, Doctor - Freeform, Dom!Harry, Domestic, Domestic!Larry, Fluff, Hoarding, Hospital, Illness, Innocent love, Insecurity, Louis Is A Whore, M/M, Missionary, Picnic, Power Bottom, Riding, Self Harm, Self Loathing, Sickness, Smut, Sub!Louis, Suicide Attempt, Top!Harry, Vegan, bottom!Louis, depressed!harry, harry is a receptionist, ill!louis, larry - Freeform, larry stylinson - Freeform, lilo, lonely, louis has cancer, prepare for tears, receptionist!harry, sub!Harry, subtop!harry, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-04-20 17:55:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4796813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazzafagga/pseuds/Hazzafagga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis isn't anything but a street whore. He really isn't, and he knows that. Physical appeal is all that he's got, so when it's taken from him along with his hair, he has nothing to gain but personality and love interest.</p><p>or the one where louis has bladder cancer and harry wears the biggest fake smile ever that it hurts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. my bladder hurts

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by the film "now is good" and the song "I cried for you" by katie melua. both super sick movie and song and hopefully I did them justice in aspects of inspiration larry is real gtg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> little bit of orange and louis doesn't care.
> 
> (by & by- brett dennen)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is supposed to be short and sweet. I'm not a big fan of lengthy fic especially when I'm the one writing, so heres for u something to read in a day or so. music is 75% of my inspiration for everything I do, so if ur ever interested in mourning w me, there is a song for each chapter and a list of songs in the end chapter which I've associated w the story itself :) I adore comments like nothing else but u reading this is more than enough thanks !!

It had always been one way or another, though the other way was more often than not despised or looked upon as the first attempt. The one way had always been the first thing to do, as it was the fun thing; the exciting thing. Other things, like what parents and mates with good intentions would suggest, never much appeal to rugged, lone boys, or if otherwise, sounded interesting, then still didn't compare to that one thing. The one thing (that thing that every teenager thinks about and either does because he/she relates or does not do because he/she cannot find the nerve) spurts a sense of control, dominance, in lives like Louis'; the lives of rugged, lone boys.

On cold nights, typically late-at-night nights, Louis wouldn't come home. He'd hang round the block, walking along in tight jeans and shirts too short for him, his eyes heavily made-up and hair done but still mussed.

It was intentional that he made himself look a whore (and it wasn't minded that people called him this; he knew how he portrayed himself). He liked that sort of fashion, the street-type, because it did appear rather well on him. Or at least that's what he thought, and he didn't seem to hear other people's opinions on it.

That is what Louis would do: stay out all night and pull other men that showed the slightest bit of interest in him. He was quite considered a whore. A slut. But that didn't bother him. He liked that people knew about him, as the more that knew of his sexy whereabouts, the more actual sex he could get.

Louis climbed down the truck, fixing his bottoms, and pulled out his phone.

The man stepped down and stood beside him. "Want me to take you home?" he asked.

"You know..." Louis looked away rather irritated. "I'm great actually. I am just fine walking, thank you. But, hey, maybe another time I'll let you drop me off at a fake address several numbers off from mine." He stood away from the truck and began walking. "Thanks again, lover."

The man scoffed and got back into his truck, taking off down the road opposite the one Louis was going.

Only despite such brilliant sex, Louis found himself very dissatisfied with his general life. He graduated college at sixteen, and then turning twenty-three suddenly, he still had not found a reason for university. Of course he would have liked to have an education and a career, but that was definitely that other thing - that thing that would quite obviously do him right - which there was no fun in. Louis probably wanted that education and potential degree in astrophysics more than anything, though what was the fun in actually earning it?

Louis didn't make money. He was given it by his parents until he was nineteen and then never opted to learn how to get it himself. It was a terrible thing his parents did to him, handing him anything he needed without giving him the chance to do it himself, and that ultimately left him underprivileged in the long run. But that was a misconception. Louis knew there is only such a word as _privileged_ , _underprivileged_ , but no _overprivileged_ , so he never pitied himself for too long.

As Louis opened his flat door, instantly met by the potent stench of burning weed and cigarettes, he phoned in for a takeaway pizza and went to the toilet for a wee.

  
He looked himself in the tiny, pseudo gold-rimmed mirror, his fringe far over his eyes. The small stubble he had growing on his chin seemed less and less appealing the more he stared at it, and the sudden craving to shave it off was incredibly sickening.

Louis sneered and shook his head and looked down at the toilet.

There was something about that that was rather eye-catching. His urine, as he was still peeing, wasn't quite usual. It was improperly coloured; more orangey than anything that would have been normal. Frequently his pee would turn up opaque only because he didn't much care to use the toilet when he needed to, nor did he stay subtle on the pop, but orange was quite frankly startling.

Louis stared at the toilet for a long time. He didn't think much, but he did think it was odd.

He flushed the toilet and stripped down to his pants, crawling into bed until his pizza was ready.

The next day wasn't as anyone expected. Early morning, round 5:00am when the flat lay asleep, Liam had come into Louis' room with a wet wash towel and thermometer.

"What are you doing?" Louis mumbled, sleepily moving the towel off his forehead.

Liam moved it back in place. "You're mad sweating. I came in to borrow your charger and saw you completely drenched in sweat. Have you felt ill?"

"No."

Feeling Louis' forehead again, he decided to wipe down the lad's dripping neck. "Your room's freezing, so there's not really any excuse for you to be this hot, Lou. Open your mouth."

As Louis parted his lips and began drifting back to sleep, Liam took his temperature and pulled the blanket off the bed, finding him well over 37°. Liam left the room for a few moments, coming back in with a pivoting fan and an ice pack. He pushed Louis onto his stomach and wiped off the sweat that was slipping down his face again.

"This is for your neck," Liam said, placing the ice along Louis' nape, "and here's for your back." He lay down the towel on Louis' shoulder blades and clipped his hair out of his face before checking his temperature again. "I'm going to get you a water bottle real quick. Try not to move too much."

Only, when he came back, there was a mass wet spot on the mattress. Louis had peed the bed, and despite the intense care he was in, he still soaked the pillow of sweat.

Liam dropped the water bottle and pulled Louis out of bed.

"Jesus, shit, let go," he grunted, standing up naked.

Liam flicked the light switch and looked closely at the sweltered sheets. "All right, get dressed. We're going to hospital."

"What for?" Louis glanced over at the mattress, then grew angry, annoyed and red-faced with embarrassment. "Uh... So I pissed the bed. Who cares?"

"Do you not see that you're ill? It's bloody red."

"No, it's not, it's orange."

Liam eyed him rather vexed, too confused however to pick an argument. "What the fuck, Louis?" he hissed. "You knew there was something wrong with you and you didn't tell me. Why haven't you said anything?"

"Ain't nothing wrong with me!" Louis was suddenly so infuriated. His breathing became erratic, and he started stammering. "You... Ugh! You stupid-- Fuck, you dumbarse shit--"

"Put clothes on, Louis," Liam interrupted, authority in his eyes and in the way he spoke to the elder lad.

And Louis had no means to disobey him. Even if he himself was older, meaner, more rugged in some ways, he wasn't big. Louis was so small and thought of as some fragile thing, which must have been why he got into the habit of selling himself. His mother brought him up so gingerly, as she'd wanted a girl but was taken by surprise with Louis. He laughed about it being older. Her curse of five girls straight after him had quite the irony.

"Excuse me."

The woman at the hospital counter looked up and smiled at Liam welcomingly.

"Where should we go to get, like, checked for an illness?"

"That would be across the street at the building just opposite us."

Liam smiled and nodded at her, and the boys turned for the other building.

If Louis could hate only three things, it would be school, vaginas, and trudging behind his mate in the city hospital knowing that he couldn’t run away. If Louis had tried that – if he had tried running away – Liam would have jumped on his back and weighed him down to the floor, punching him where it hurt; his lower abdomen. He didn't know why, but it hurt so much. He would never tell anyone, but if he could, he'd have written it down one hundred times anonymously and spread it all through town. _"My bladder hurts."_ He would have done that if he wasn't so afraid of hospitals.

Stopped behind Liam, Louis fiddled with his hands once they found the reception. He didn't dare look up, knowing well that they had found the right place and would be able to receive help at this desk.

He didn't want to be there. There wasn't anything wrong with him. He had discoloured urine and a small ache as he "went," but it couldn't have been anything more than an infection. It mustn't have been serious. Not that Louis would know. He could never actually know if there was something wrong with him or not, if anything to worry about at all. It is why he was at the city hospital. He needed help, though the point to the little indie movie monologue in his head was that he didn't want it.

"You'll have to sit in the waiting area until nurses are ready to take you," explained the man behind the till. "You have to fill out a form, which I've got for you here. I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you might have."

"Cheers."

Louis followed Liam to a chair, nearly sitting on him with how preoccupied his mind was.

“Here, fill this out,” Liam said, handing Louis the clipboard.

Louis looked down at the pages. _Surname:_ it said. _First Name:_ it said after. Suddenly Louis couldn’t remember how to spell it.

“Can we go?” Louis pressed.

“The quicker you fill it out, the quicker we can leave.”

“I don’t want to fill it out, you fuckface.”

Liam glared.

“I want to go home _now_. Drive me home.”

“No,” the younger, more superior lad argued. “Just shut up. Fuck, stop being such a pussy and fill it out.”

“I’m not being a fucking pussy, and you know how I feel about that word. That’s a _disgusting_ word. You make me _sick_.”

“I’ll rip you a new arsehole. I’ll rip you a new one right fucking now; you keep that shit up, little bitch.”

A man stepped in front of the two boys, and Louis looked up immediately. “Sir, have you finished the form?”

Louis didn’t say anything in that particular moment. The man was looking at him with a mean glint, apparently aware that he’d heard the bickering and did not approve. Louis didn’t care about what this man saw in him. It wasn’t his business to know what the man thought, and frankly, he didn’t mind, for he knew, as it was so obvious, he thought Louis to be annoying.

“No, not yet, sir.” He was always quick for snide.

The man raised an eyebrow. “No, no, not ‘sir.’ I’m Harry if you have got any questions."

Louis couldn’t help checking the man out. But realising it, “a man” was no proper way to address him. He was a boy – in no way a day older. He was young and charming. Louis would have definitely seen something in him if he wasn’t such a prude.

“Thanks a lot, Harold.”

The boy frowned, glared, and then went back behind the reception counter.

The two flatmates sat for several long minutes, awaiting the moment Louis would finish the paperwork. It took up far too long of their time, suddenly being seven in the morning, but Louis managed.

He walked up to the counter. “I have you the, um…”

The receptionist looked at the clipboard in his hand. “You didn’t write your name, sir.”

Ignoring the inside jibe between them, Louis looked at the page closely. He really had forgotten how to spell his surname. “Well,” he started quietly, “why do you need it?”

“Because this isn’t an emergency.”

“So?”

“So you can’t go right in. If you can’t go in, then we need your name so we can call you in when we’re ready.”

“Why aren’t you ready now?”

It was clear the boy was growing irritated with him, his breathing becoming slow and jagged. He grabbed the clipboard and pen from Louis’ hand. “Name?”

Louis leaned over the desk and watched the boy check things off on the paper. “Louis Tomlinson,” he said.

The receptionist paused for a moment, but managed to spell it correctly (and Louis felt so stupid for not knowing how to do it himself).

“And what’s wrong with you?”

“Oh, nothing’s wrong.”

The boy chuckled to himself, evidently putting Louis in confusion. “Oh, that I’m sure.”

“You don’t know,” Louis proclaimed. “I don’t even want to be here or need to be here, as a matter of fact. I was smuggled."

  
_“Smuggled?”_

“Yes, smuggled. I don’t even know that bloke over there. He’s smuggled me across the Russian border from Vladivostok.” Louis felt a tinge of embarrassment, watching the boy laugh at him. “Why’s that funny?”

“Because it’s a lie."

Louis frowned. “It is _not_. I _am_ from Russia and I was smuggled. I’m not making it up.”

The boy licked his lips and eyed Louis very cheekily, and Louis' face instantly felt hot. The lad looked down at the paperwork and pointed at it. “You checked off that you were born in Europe. And you drew a smiley face beside the box. Even if you were Russian and spoke English fluently, it's typical that you would learn it using an American accent. Not a British one.”

Louis blushed.

“So, is there anything out of the ordinary going on with you? Something that might be concerning?”

“Yeah, mate, I already filled that bit out.”

  
He looked at the bottom of the page where Louis had pointed and flipped it over the clipboard. “You said that your bladder hurts."

“Yeah, that’s right,” Louis confirmed.

The boy blinked. He looked up in boredom. “Anything else?”

Louis made a nervous laugh, clapping his hands together loudly which made a baby cry. “My piss is orange,” he announced, his confidence with sharing his secret shattering once he said it aloud. “Or red, I don’t know. It’s like a scarlet colour.”

He felt insecure about this. Being his person, he wasn’t used to having things wrong with him. He had always been healthy and attractive. If he wasn’t healthy (which there was a serious possibility), then he wasn’t attractive, and if he wasn’t attractive, he wasn't anything. Physical appeal was his only appeal. He wasn’t smart. He wasn’t clever. He was a lazy whore that was out of a job. That’s what he called himself.

The boy behind the counter wrote down what Louis had said without noticeable judgement. It must have been a part of his job to be understanding of any illness symptoms, but any reason as to why he'd not made a big deal about the discolouration in Louis' urine was a reason to make him feel not so bad about himself.

"All right, sir. I'll put this in for you."

Louis bit his lips and looked at the boy's exquisite expression of fatigue. "It's Louis, though."

"Yeah, I know, sir." He looked up and snatched Louis' full, undivided attention with a smile.

If Louis' heart didn't explode in his chest, he didn't know what happened, but it hurt. It hurt him inside to watch this boy smile at him. It hurt as much as his lower abdomen, and that hurt so much.


	2. thank you for this illness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> maybe it's bad, but surely louis can handle it.
> 
> (draw your swords- angus & julia stone)

"There is a possibility it's cancer."

The way the doctor said it had him laughing. He wasn't taking him seriously. The doctor had told him that he had a chance of bladder cancer, and Louis laughed.

"What's cancer?" he said, clearly taking the piss.

"Mister Tomlinson, we did find blood in your urine, which is something you were concerned about?" He was reading Louis' paperwork and marking things on his clipboard. "And, um, you stated that you had back pains, pain whilst urinating, frequent or no need to urinate, discoloured urine, weight loss and slight swelling of the feet. Can you remove one of your shoes, please?"

"Is that a fetish?"

Doctor Wright looked at Louis oddly, then on the rolling chair he sat on, pushed away toward his desk. "No, I don't think so," he mumbled, stealing a sip from his thermos. "Just need to check the swelling."

"If they are swollen, what does that tell you?"

"Well..." He put on a pair of rubber gloves and rolled back to Louis. "It helps me pinpoint what's going on. If your feet are swollen, it'll simplify the diagnosis."

As Louis kicked off his shoes and prepared his coping mechanism for tickles, he thought about what would happen if his diagnosis took away his appeal. A simple infection would have definitely made him unattractive. He'd hide from the world and lock himself away forever if he lost even the smallest percentage of appeal.

Doctor Wright felt round Louis' foot for a second. He then chewed on his gum. "Yeah, it is very swollen actually."

Louis slipped his shoe back on. "What's that mean?"

"Nothing," said Doctor Wright. "Just that your feet are swollen."

The boy laughed sarcastically. "I am twenty-three years old, doctor. I assure you, I can handle the diagnosis without losing face. I know you have it up there."

"You're right," the doctor admitted, and Louis proudly grinned. "You are twenty-three for sure."

The man’s brilliance and wit couldn't possibly have made Louis feel more relaxed. As a matter of fact, he felt relieved; that a visit to a hospital could turn out so much easier than expected.

"How have you been eating? Do you keep a healthy diet?"

Louis didn't think hard about it. "I haven't had much of an appetite," he informed. "I mean, I force-feed myself, but I really never _feel_ like eating. I eat McDonald's, gummies, and I go heavy on the pop. I know I shouldn't drink so much of that, but I like the way it feels when I burp. And how it sounds."

Doctor Wright smiled as he wrote on his clipboard. "That's a good diet."

"Yeah," Louis agreed, blushing only because Doctor Wright was teasing him.

"It's none of my business, but it's in my best interest to recommend you go lighter on the pop and cut McDonald's completely. The gummies are good."

"Gummies good?" Louis laughed, catching the man's warm smile again.

"Yes, gummies are good."

The long time between them abruptly felt a lot shorter once Doctor Wright could no longer stall. Their time fell so, absolutely short as the diagnosis was made after a CT scan. Louis' doctor had sat him down in his office, unsure of how to tell him - though he was twenty-three and capable of taking such news - that it was stage 3 bladder cancer that was aching him.

And Louis had thought he could take that. He was right about not behaving a crybaby, for he sucked up any possible sadness and immediately became angry.

Louis rushed out of the office and ran down the hall, pushing past the nurses and other patients. It wasn't that Louis was running away from his problems. He had cancer. He knew that. What he was running away from, a silly thing, was the crush he had on his urologist. He felt embarrassed by the mere fact that he had cancer, and the only one with awareness of that, and the one who had known it all along, who had guessed it from the very beginning before the swollen feet, was Doctor Wright. Louis was already so unappealing.

He did start crying after a short while, going straight past Liam who'd sat for hours waiting for him. Louis ran away from anyone who might have seen him before. He went past Harry at the desk and round the corner as he made it outside, stopping to sit against the wall and cry there.

Liam came out and sat beside him after a long time by himself. He didn't say anything. He put his arm round him and only sat there in the heat of day, being of comfort to him.

And Louis could feel the cancer in him. He felt it now knowing it was there, and he cried more because of that, and he cried because he felt so ugly.

They went home, later phoning the hospital to schedule Louis' first chemotherapy appointment. He decided he wanted to do it, with the big money his parents had, and he called it a day.

He slept into the afternoon and into the night, into the next morning and all the way into the next week where his therapy would start.

Louis ran away that day. He only got as far as the end of the block before Liam came after him. They screamed at each other, Louis in raging, depressed tears, and Liam snatched him and shoved him into the car.

"Hey, Harry," Liam said to the receptionist. "How's your day going?"

Harry made a face and shrugged. "Pretty okay. You?"

"I'm fine, thanks." He looked over at Louis who stood far away, grouching. "We have a booking for a chemotherapy session at 2:30."

"Yeah. One second." Harry typed and clicked several things on his computer, then grinned across the room at Louis. "You can go up, sir."

Louis made a nasty face at him and zipped up his jumper, walking past the two of them toward the lift. And the day had gotten worse once he stepped out.

"Hi, Louis," Doctor Wright said to him in his office. “How are you?”

"I'm _great_."

The man smiled sadly with his patient’s disheartened behaviour. "Don't be worried. I think you'll go through therapy easy and successfully."

"Really?"

Louis' heart beat faster hearing such news, not even thinking to realise his urologist felt obligated to give him hope no matter the actual probability of success.

Because Louis hadn't gone through chemo successfully. It had been a waste of time and money for session one, and he had so many more to go if he chose to do that. He walked out of the lift tired and slow.

"Mister Tomlinson, how did it go?" Harry wondered, full of concern for him.

Louis turned round and looked at him. They stared at each other for a moment until Louis traipsed up to the desk. "Do you find me attractive?" he asked.

Harry raised a brow. "W-What do you--"

"Do you fancy me?"

The boy fixed his hair, and he looked overwhelmingly insecure doing so. He was stalling, just like Doctor Wright, because he didn't want to say the wrong thing. "Why?" he mumbled, his anxiety so obvious.

"'Cause I want to ask you out."

The blood that rushed to Harry's face was out of control, and Louis' drowsiness just as much.

"'Out' like outside 'out?'"

"No, like, on a date 'out.' Because I like you."

Harry tucked his hair behind his ear and licked his lips. "Well... I actually wanted to ask you that, but I was going to wait a while. And I... I didn't know whether or not you were--"

"Gay?"

"Yeah."

"I am gay." Louis smiled a half smile. "You don't have to wonder about that now. But, um..."

"Yeah?"

"Are you serious about how you wanted to ask me out, too?" Louis felt ridiculous asking. "I mean, if I hadn't asked you just now, would you have done it? You know... later?"

The receptionist smiled that charming smile of his. "Yeah, I would have. I would have waited until I knew for sure that you and your smuggler weren't together, but I definitely would have asked."

Louis laughed at that. "No, yeah, we aren't together." And then Louis and Harry took a moment just to look at each other. "Can you ask me though? Like how you would have?"

Harry took in a calm, focused breath before looking round the waiting area. He cleared his throat, chewed on his gum a bit, and looking at Louis, he grinned. "Do you want to go on a date with me, Mister Tomlinson?"

"Yeah."

Three days later, Louis got out of the shower and slipped on the water that puddled at his feet. Needless to say, he bruised his knees and hip. He accomplished shrugging it off, though the actual walking it off was a lot more difficult than he'd hoped.

Louis couldn't remember the last date he went on where he cared about what he looked like. He'd spent hours getting ready, going from outfit to outfit, unsure of how he should fix his hair, pacing round his room on thought of what he should say. And he couldn't wash off the aggressive cigarette odor that he knew was on him. He couldn't smell it with how long he'd lived in this drug-scented flat, but he knew it was there.

"Are you really going out looking like that?" Liam said as Louis just got to the door.

He frowned. "Do I really look that bad?"

"Not if he's taking you to the beach. Why are you wearing a crop-top?"

"I don't know, Liam! Fuck! I can't change now, can I? He's waiting for me in the bloody car! What do I do?"

"Go change," Liam said with a soft smile. "I'll keep him busy. Um, wear that black shirt and jumper pairing that you do in winter. And the really tight black jeans."

Louis grunted and ran upstairs screaming, "Don't be my dad when you talk to him, I mean it!"

"Absolutely zero chances that I'm listening to you right now." Liam opened the front door and peeked outside. "He's wearing all black!" he yelled up to the top floor. "You better match him, Louis! The black pairing! Don't fight me on this - you'll look so good together!"

As Louis left out of the flat after working himself the nerve to walk out, constantly peeking through the spy hole whilst listening in on conversations, he made sure he had no cat hairs or lint flakes on him. He couldn't recall ever being so nervous. And the boys turned back as Louis came out.

  
Liam looked at Louis and grinned with approval. Louis was glad about that.

His father (all three of them) had never appreciated him fully for what or who he was. His first father, the real one, walked out on him, and stepfather number one (the one Louis preferred) didn't work out right with his mother in the long run. The current father was too new to him, so Louis couldn't properly warm up. But Liam, over all of his fathers, was more of a dad to him than anyone. They hadn't always lived together - Liam let him stay whether he paid bills or not.

Harry blinked several times whilst having his eyes locked upon his date, and Liam gently elbowed him in the chest. "Ow," he said, even though it hadn't hurt a bit.

"Hi." Louis sounded pathetic. "Love your button-down. Suits you."

Harry grinned so sweetly. "Thanks. You look... really good. I mean, not 'good.' You look nice. You do look good, just not in that way." He made a face at what he'd just said. "You _do_ look good in that way-- You just... You... You look good in a nice way, too. You look nice."

Louis could only swoon about the receptionist's stammering. "Thank you," he said, his stomach feeling devoured by butterflies.

Harry had taken them to the fanciest restaurant that Louis had ever gone to, though was an understatement because he'd never been to a fancy restaurant.

  
He felt underdressed amongst a room full of upperclassmen who sat with napkins in their laps and tucked into their shirts. The men wore cufflinks, the ladies had themselves stockings and the small number of children dressed in perfectly fitted gowns and shirts. What was Louis doing there?

He said nothing of that, however, because Harry rolled up his sleeves to keep them clean, and he made his tattoos obvious and something for Louis to find comfort in. So when Harry smiled at him, Louis smiled back and shrugged off his cardigan, letting his own tattooed arms out. It would have been a lovely thing to watch if any of those upperclassmen found any interest in them at all.

And when their food came, Louis prayed something. He thought, maybe if Harry liked him enough, he was allowed to be okay with having cancer. Louis thought he could pray _Thank you for this illness_ , though instead, he settled on Thanks, Jesus and ate.

"Thank you, Harry, for taking me out," Louis said once he was brought home. "It was really nice."

"It was my pleasure. I had such a good time getting to know you."

"Yeah. You, as well. I like the way you use a spoon to eat pasta."

Harry blushed as he laughed, suddenly unsure of what to say next and it was obvious. "Um... We should hang out again sometime. Maybe? If you aren't busy?"

"Yeah, that would be so nice."

It was quiet between them for a moment before Harry smiled another beautifully happy smile. He leaned in close, holding his hands behind his back as he pressed a kiss to Louis' cheek. "Goodnight, Louis," he said, that wonderful smile upon his face, and he turned round toward his car.

Louis made a face. "That's it?"

Harry looked back. "What's it?"

"You're going just like that? Just after a wee peck on the cheek?"

"Well... I didn't want to rush anything."

"Oh," Louis huffed, unlocking the front door. "Didn't know we were in primary school, but..."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know if you'd be okay with that or not. I didn't--"

"All right, Harry, it's okay," Louis laughed, walking inside. "Thank you for dropping me at home. Goodnight."

Harry went to the door before Louis could completely shut it. "Wait."

Louis looked up at him, feeling somehow so unflattering and appalling in that moment. But he stayed where Harry could see him in the doorway. "What?"

Harry bowed his head frustratedly. "What happens if I don't kiss you?"

"I'll think you don't like me," Louis admitted. "And I might move on." He watched Harry pick at his nails, just standing there outside this boy's flat.

"I like you though." He looked up at Louis and bit his lips. "I like you a lot."

"Okay."

It took a mound of confidence to kiss Louis then, but he did. Harry put his hands on the boy's hips, Louis' round his neck, and they stood there kissing in the night. It was nice, and Louis was glad he pressed Harry for it, even if he was acting a slag. He liked Harry, and Harry liked him back, so he didn't mind.

Their kiss had become such a hungry one within seconds, the decision Louis made to take hold on the boy's shirt and pull him in giving Harry arousal, making them both stumble against the wall. So then they had a proper snog, and Harry backed away before it became too much.

"Goodnight, Louis," he said as he left.

Louis went inside, but he couldn't get the smile off his face whilst looking through the spy hole. He loved watching Harry grin as he got into his car, and Louis then thought, maybe he could accept his cancer a little bit more.


	3. i'm dying and it sucks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> louis has always been good at riding out pain.
> 
> (kvällens sista cigarrett- veronica maggio)

The third week of chemotherapy, Louis started losing his hair. It hadn't all come out at once, but it was thinning the more he was on medication. The good news about it, despite his lack of appeal, was that the cancer was shrinking.

"I think we should talk about this surgery again," Doctor Wright suggested before his fourth session. "You should really consider it, Louis. It would be good for fighting this."

"But you said it was working." Louis felt so angry. "Didn't you say the chemo was working? Am I fucking feeling like shit and losing my hair for nothing?"

"Louis, no, the chemo is working, but not in the way you're thinking. Remember, I told you that the therapy shrinks the cancer cells, it doesn't remove it. Surgery is the most affective thing we can do to get rid of the cancer. After surgery is when we can get back to therapy and start with chemo-radiation to get rid of excess cells."

"What exactly are you removing in surgery?"

"Well, since it's stage 3, it'd gotten to other places like your reproductive organs. There's many things that could be removed in different people, but what we would be looking at for you - not saying that it's necessary - is the prostate, seminal vesicles and part of the bladder or the whole bladder. But I'm going to look at you again and see if I can get as much as I can worked round."

"Yeah, I'm not getting my prostate removed," Louis affirmed, crossing his legs. "I'm a bottom. I sort of need my prostate to come."

"No, not necessarily." Doctor Wright rolled off on his chair toward his desk and had himself a sip from his thermos. "You could easily come just from sensation or romance. Not everything down there is absolutely dependent on your prostate, so if it were removed, your body would have to find other ways for stimulation. It isn't easy, but it isn't hard. The only thing... You need to understand that I must explain this to you before you truly decide what it is you want. If your prostate is removed, which is high in might, you wouldn't be able to get an erection. You need to know that."

Louis considered the surgery. If there was no removal of his prostate, which he knew was unlikely, then he might take the chance. But then the actual thought of surgery frightened him; the thought of being bedridden.

He decided against it after Doctor Wright confirmed that he would indeed have to remove Louis' prostate, though it was in his best interest health-wise. After all, decisions were made by the patients' comfort.

After the fourth treatment, adding radiation to the session, Louis had another date with the receptionist. He begged Liam to let him barrow the car for the evening, and he dressed quite the opposite of what he had the past few dates. He had too many crop-tops.

"I like your Snapback," Harry said as they walked along the field. "Red suits you."

"Thanks. It's from Hong-Kong."

"Hong-Kong?"

"Yeah. I wasn't going to wear it today 'cause it's so hot, but I thought I probably should. 'Cause hair and that." Louis let go of Harry's hand to make sure his hat was on right, then held it again.

"You look great," Harry told him, kicking little stones at his feet. "Every time you come into hospital, you look all grumpy and mad, which is cute, but then you come talk to me at the desk and you get happy, and that's cute, too. No matter how you look, you look great to me."

Louis could have cried from hearing that. "Oh, God," he laughed, holding onto Harry's arm. "You're so cheesy and sweet. Damn."

"Huh?"

"I thought of a joke, but it's really lame. It goes: You're just like the food I brought."

"What food is it?"

Louis grinned and released his grip on Harry, walking away from him up the hill. "No, I won't tell you that," he said. "It's a surprise, and, well, I've thought about it a long time and worked really hard on it and I don't want it to be ruined."

"Ruined how?" Harry followed Louis up the hill. "I won't ruin anything, I swear. I won't ask."

So Harry didn't ask. The boys walked up the hill, stopping at the car they'd parked there to pull out the bags Louis had brought, which held a full picnic. They spread the blanket over the roof of the car and setup dinner. And Louis had truly thought of it all. He didn't have the money to take them out to an exorbitant restaurant, but he had the perseverance to save up on something little: an artificial taper, wine, unbreakable tableware and vegan food (as Harry was vegan).

The smile on Harry's face withheld all of the grace the world could sum, and that was far more than enough thanks for Louis' sake.

They sat on top of the car during sunset and dusk, the pseudo candlelight making everything all the more romantic, and if Louis were to think so, he'd think a cheap vegan dinner on a car roof surrounded by mosquitoes was just as good as anything else. Only because he was with Harry, eating cheesy fake cheese and non-dairy sweets.

  
Their seventh date was on the night after Louis' fifth therapy session. They went to dinner, saw a film, and went back to Harry's for the first time.

His flat smelled of him. It looked like how he looked, and it had his character written all over it. There was a table of photo frames, a table of a collection, a table of another, and his bedroom had more animal figurines than Louis had expected. Harry had told him about the collections he kept, and for some reason, Louis liked the tiny iron Yorkie most.

"I quite fancy your room," Louis thought aloud, leaning over to closely look the row of animals on the chest. "You have so many of these."

Harry toed off his shoes and flicked his hair over to one side. "Yeah, they're, um... Most of them are old. I don't really collect them anymore."

"Why not?"

"Grew out of it. I've recently got into shoelaces, which is weird because I really don't wear lace-ups."

"Yeah?" Louis smiled and looked up at the oddly patterned shoelaces hanging like ribbons off the ceiling. "You have so much going on in your head. You're beautiful."

Harry laughed, blushing as he sat on his bed. "I think you're beautiful though," he chose to say. "And your room-- I like the way you have your bed perfectly set in the middle. I've never seen that before. And I like that you have butter knives everywhere. Like a collection."

"Yeah, I didn't clean it. I don't clean." Louis went to sit beside his date, scooting in close.

Harry smiled at him. "I feel like such an idiot right now, thinking that I'll make it awkward if I kiss you even though we've done it a hundred times."

"Yeah," Louis sighed. "Yeah, me, too." He placed his hands on his knees and kissed Harry's lips very quickly, feeling awkward just like Harry had said.

The young receptionist fixed his hair and grinned. "That's it?" he laughed. "Oh, you're such a twelve-year-old, my God!"

"Whatever." Louis pulled him in by the shirt and kissed him, pushing him back onto the mattress.

Harry lay there subordinate to him, leaving his hands on Louis' wrists as he let his date kiss him. Harry felt weak in the knees and a lack of air, already getting hard from lying down with Louis on top of him. Though as he felt confident enough to move his hands to Louis' waist, Louis sat up.

"Wait," he said, making Harry feel ashamed for putting his hands on him. "I-I know we haven't talked much about this, but we need to."

"Yeah?"

"Um... We should talk about 'next step' sort of things. Like sex. Because I've already sucked you off." Louis scratched his ear. "Oh, God, is that right? I don't date so I don't know how it works. And I've probably ruined the moment already."

He started to move off of Harry's lap, and Harry's eyes went wide. "No, no, you haven't," he was eager to say. He sat up, putting his hands on his crotch. "You're right, we should talk about it. Sex. That's fine."

"I just... I know you're religious and I don't want to mess anything up. Like, if you don't want to have sex, I completely understand. I don't want to make anything difficult for you or have you second-guess yourself."

Harry couldn't fight his grin along with his butterflies from being of concern to someone. "I'm not _that_ religious," he noted. "I'd be fine with 'next step' stuff if you were."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"So let's say we both wanted to. When would we do it?"

Neither of them thought about it. They already knew, from the very day they developed feelings for one another, when they would like to properly give their love away. Though they hadn't said those words "I love you," they still kept those thoughts. And along with those _I love you_ 's were their answers to Louis' question.

"I kind of don't want to say the wrong thing," Harry was brave enough to admit.

"Yeah, me either," Louis agreed. "Say yours on three, I'll say mine."

They did that, and despite the equivalence, the answers were completely different. Louis had said, "Tonight," and Harry said, "Now."

"Now?" Louis eyed him in shock.

"Or later tonight. Later. Later would be okay. Whatever, it's fine with me."

"Now's great," Louis muttered under his breath.

And Harry turned to him rather taken aback. He looked like he had been staring at the sun for hours and just blinked. He looked ridiculously, embarrassingly hopeful and fond of Louis. "N-Now?" he stuttered. "Really?"

Louis shrugged. "If you want."

"Yeah." Harry made a face and shook his head. "I mean yes, I want to. I've wanted to... since we first met, which I know is weird, but it's true. I mean, you're so gorgeous. I still don't understand how someone like you could fancy someone like me. You're so amazing and I'm nothing compared to you."

Louis sighed. He fixed himself on Harry's lap, placing his arms over the lad's shoulders. "You are so much more than you know. Besides, someone like me ain't someone special," he whispered. "You wouldn't know that though. Someone like me... That's not a person you want."

"But I..." Harry could nearly hyperventilate with how suffocating his feelings were to him. "I think you're special."

Louis' heart was pounding. It felt like his entire body was ill, getting devoured by cancer, inch by inch. It felt like he was dreaming, somehow finally being with someone who wasn't just for a night. He didn't think he could do it. No one did. But there he was, standing a month with a twenty-one-year-old vegan hospital receptionist boy who'd thought of Louis as special. This "other thing" was far better than the first thing.

They had taken off their clothes and hid under the duvet. Louis had kept his spot on top, and Harry hadn't anything to say about that. He'd gotten his neck kissed, put into an art form with marks of pink and purple flesh, his chest turned a flushed, bothersome colour, and his cock heavy on his stomach.

Louis was so focused on making his date feel good, he hardly noticed that his dick itself was twitching. He held Harry down without efforts - nothing but the unannounced "I call dominance" rule - whilst making lovebites to his skin, having the boy a moaning wreck.

Harry wasn't a virgin, and God knew neither was Louis, but together, they were as innocent as innocence could be, and they held onto that.

Louis kissing Harry's mouth for as long as he could before running out of breath, he sat up to get a condom out of his jeans on the floor, which Harry chuckled about.

  
Louis put the condom down Harry's shaft, then reached up to pull the light string, the room going dark despite the streetlamp outside the window. "Now?" he wondered.

Harry gulped, suddenly feeling hot. "Whenever you're ready."

"I'm ready. Are you?"

"Yeah."

Louis nodded and fixed the sheet on his shoulders as he leaned over the receptionist, taking his length in his hand. He wiggled his legs apart, and began to slowly take Harry's cock.

Harry sighed inwardly, dropping his head back onto the mattress, whimpering the farther Louis sank down onto him.

"Fuck..." Louis breathed. He had never felt the need to prep as an adult until now, it having been a while, and Harry being exceptionally big. He licked his lips and kissed the boy again before starting to rock his hips.

It had started off slow, romantic, and they cherished the time, but a spark deep within Louis' body triggered something in him. Suddenly, he was himself again, the mask he put on to spare both their feelings gone, and he'd forgot all about Harry.

Louis sat up and pulled the sheets off himself, placing his hands on the boy's chest as he rode him, starting to whine and breathe and move the that way did with hundreds of men.

Harry lay on the bed, his hands on Louis' thighs whilst staring up at him, so caught up in everything he was that he couldn't realise he was being used, even if he wanted to.

And Louis hadn't realised it either. He didn't look at Harry anymore. He fucked him like a machine, like nothing, but if he had known what he was doing, he would have stopped. He definitely would have stopped.

"Feels so fucking good," Louis whimpered in a wrecked voice. "Your cock's so big, hun. Feels so good inside me. You're gonna make me come. Want me to come for you?"

Harry couldn't possibly sum up any words. He was as pure as anything, even having given his virginity to someone else, and the way Louis spoke to him made him want to close his eyes and think of something else because he felt on the verge of doing something naughty. But to take his eyes off of Louis was like saying goodbye to air, which was running straight past him no matter how heavily he breathed.

"Oh, hun, I'm gonna come," Louis mewled, grinding down onto Harry's cock, making him grab hold of the boy's waist in angst.

"Love, w-wait," Harry whimpered. "Just go slower."

"Fuck, gonna make me come."

Needless to say, Louis was too selfish. He heard what Harry was saying, but there was nothing at all that he could say to make Louis stop now.

Harry sat up on his elbows. "Louis," he tried to say sternly, though it came out like a purr. "Lou, slow down."

Just then, Louis started to feel bad. He felt so terrible abruptly, yet not because he made Harry feel a certain way during their first time - he felt so terrible because he wanted to take off his hat, but he couldn't because he remembered that he had cancer.

So he ground against Harry faster out of frustration, wanting to forget about his illness for at least a second by coming undone with the boy he liked. The more Harry told him to slow down, the more he sped up.

Harry took Louis' wrists and sat up, nudging him roughly. "Louis, stop!"

Harry yelling at him, Louis came, and he writhed in the boy's arms as they stared at each other. And the look on Louis' face, in his eyes, the way he whined and breathed so heavily, the feeling of his come on Harry's chest made him groan, coming right after him.

A sensationally romantic orgasm is what Harry experienced, and Louis', knowing it straight away, was all only from pleasure.

  
The boys sat there panting in complete silence, the sound of the heater the single thing between them and sadness.

"Why did you do that?" Harry asked after a long time.

Louis looked at him in thought. "Do what?"

"You made it like I was just a shag. Is that all I am to you?"

Louis' heart continued to beat hard, because Harry was figuring it out. He was placing the pieces of Louis' mystery together, something he swore he would never let happen. Or even if Harry hadn't realised what he was doing, he was doing it, and it hurt Louis to feel obligated to put him down in order to spare him finding out.

"If you didn't like it, you could just say." He climbed off Harry's lap, bending over the bed for his clothes.

Harry began stuttering on an absence of words. "I... No, I did like it," he tried to make known. "It was amazing. You were absolutely perfect, Louis. I've never felt so close... and so lost for someone. Nothing will change that." He took Louis' shirt out of his hands as he opted to put it on, placing it down on the bed. "I just need to know what happened. We fucked, didn't we? It wasn't supposed to be that."

Thinking about it, hearing about what he had done, he felt like he may vomit. Louis rubbed his face. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I shouldn't have been like that. I'm sorry, I ruined it. I don't know what came over me."

"You didn't ruin anything."

"I did. I mean, I know that I was stressing out. I just got this stupid, sick feeling in my stomach. I like you a lot and this--"

Louis' nose started to feel wet, and then it had begun to drip off his chin. He wiped his fingers over his mouth, and blood smeared across his cheek.

"Shit," he swore, moving his hand to catch the blood.

Harry was up and scrambling for tissues before Louis had even known what happened.

"I'm sorry," he said as he took a napkin from the box Harry offered. "Sorry."

The young receptionist stepped out of his room a moment for wet towel, coming back to wipe clean the blood that had ran down his date's chest.

"Sorry," Louis said again.

"Stop apologising." Harry took the napkin out of Louis' hand and tossed it to the bin, though he missed, and Louis had seen it. He had seen how full of blood the napkin was.

Harry pressed another tissue to Louis' nose.

He felt faint. "Oh... God," Louis heaved. "That... My head is bleeding."

"No, it's not, it's okay." Harry kissed the boy's forehead where the clasp of his hat was, continuing to apply pressure to his nose. "Don't be scared. You're fine, love. Everything's awesome right now. You look so beautiful, do you know that?"

And there was that smile. That inviting smile he wore that made Louis feel sick, like butterflies were taking over his body from his stomach. He felt taken control of by this butterfly sickness. The colour on their wings mixed with his urine, the tickle in his nose made it so dry it bled; they hugged onto his bladder and troubled it. It was a stupid illness, what Louis made bladder cancer into. But he needed a reason, even if it were a stupid, made up analogy, why he could hate himself so much for getting sick and at the same time be so distracted by this teenage-like love he was in that made him forget for hours that he was terminally out of health. His butterflies were invading him everywhere. How could Harry make him forget that?

"The bleeding stopped." Harry wiped Louis' nose clean, then surprised him with a kiss there. "How do you feel? Are you lightheaded at all?"

He didn't even need to ask. Louis was so lightheaded he couldn't speak. He couldn't so much as sit up straight. He sat with his hands on Harry's thighs, having him something to lean on; if not, he'd have collapsed. But to answer his question, what Louis said in his mind, he didn't feel well. He was dying, and it sucked.


	4. it's 'cause I'm albino

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everyone knows right from wrong but louis is louis.
> 
> (alone- thom hell)

"I'm sure I don't want surgery. But I know it's the right thing to do. And I know getting surgery won't make it worse, so I'm really confused on what I should do. It's weird. I always do whatever I want even when I know it's wrong. I don't know what to do."

"It's whatever you're comfortable with, Louis. I'm not going to be the one to tell you what's right and what's wrong, how you should live. It's your decision."

"But my decision is wrong. I know it. I can't not get surgery and feel like I've made the right choice. I know I'll regret it."

"Here's the thing about surgery: you can regret not getting it, but you can still get it, and you can regret getting it, but you can't take it back. If you _really_ want the surgery, get it. If you don't, then don't."

Louis held his head between his hands, his chin on Doctor Wright's desk as he was allowed. (They had both become so comfortable round each other. If Louis hadn't already felt tied to Harry, he would have switched hospitals to get away from Doctor Wright and the heavy crush he would have still had on him.)

The man rubbed his beard. "You still have time to think about it."

Louis, slumped upon the desk whilst playing with the hourglass, inwardly sighed as his eyes teared up from his constant tiredness. "How much time do I have?"

Doctor Wright scoffed and sipped from his thermos.

"I'm serious."

"You have plenty of time, Louis," the man told him. "You aren't getting worse, you're just not getting significantly better. I will let you know of everything that goes on. I told you I would. But I truly, honestly think surgery is your best bet. I wouldn't tell you that if it wasn't true. There are good surgeons here, Louis, that would do a good job. They wouldn't mess anything up - they've been doing this for decades."

Louis couldn't find the perseverance to argue anymore. He was so tired. He had done therapy sixteen times, and he looked terrible.

Louis had been staying in hospital for days at a time recently, of which the only upside; he saw Harry everyday. And branching off that; he got real food everyday, if he had an appetite to eat, though he was force-fed most of the time. Louis got to watch films, be read to, brought pajamas. Mostly, what made Louis feel a certain way that he couldn't name, Harry was always smiling. Still. Seeing Louis in such a defective state of body and mind, he could never be fazed.

The night Louis got his first nosebleed from the illness, after Harry cleaned him up and kissed his head, he gave him a fresh shirt to wear.

"Here, you can wear this tonight," Harry said, handing Louis a top.

Louis looked at it, and he raised a brow. "Why's it got fingers on it?"

Harry frowned and snatched the shirt, examining it himself. "They're not fingers," he claimed, "they're hands. They're hands, Louis." He handed it back and tied his hair up.

"All right." Louis took his hat off and slipped on the shirt, the hem falling at his hips. "It's a bit small for you, I reckon."

"Yeah, I shrunk it in the dryer yesterday. You can have it if you want."

"Really?"

"Yeah, love."

Louis grinned and replaced his Snapback, swinging it backwards again. "Thanks."

Only the next morning as Harry made breakfast, Louis came out into the kitchen, his hair mussed, beard scruffy, and with Harry's old shirt cut up into a crop-top.

Harry flipped a pancake and shook his head.

"Do I _have_ to do chemo today?" Louis said, and had said every therapy session since the fourth one.

"No," Doctor Wright told him. "I tell you no every time you ask me that."

"In hopes you'll say yes. Then I won't feel like such a waste of space."

"You are not a waste of space, Louis. You mean a lot to me, your parents, brother and sisters. I know I would be crushed if you quit on me. The only reason I say no is because I have to."

Louis rolled his head, it feeling heavy on him. "My wee brother and sister don't come to see me anymore," he mumbled, laying his head back down on the desk. "I think it's 'cause I'm albino."

"Hm?" Doctor Wright was teasing him.

Louis didn't feel like stating the actual reason. He knew that his stepfather didn't let Doris and Ernest see him because their father was afraid they would be scared of him. Even if those were never the exact words.

Doctor Wright ran his fingers over his lips. "Louis, it's time for your session," he said, regretting just the thought. "Do you want to do it?"

He took a moment. He sat there, lain against the table, staring at the sand finish the fall to the bottom of the hourglass. "I'll be throwing up a lot this time?" he mumbled barely comprehensible.

"Yes."

Louis sat up slowly, his jumper slipping off his naked shoulder with how big on him it was now. "Okay."

Chemo had gone just as it always had. It didn't expel the cancer and it left Louis wanting to die regardless. The astonishing pain he felt from his stomach down to his knees, the need to keep moving but need to stay as still as possible contradicting him to the point of incredible migraines. The only thing he wanted now was to see his family because, in all honesty, he had no idea how long he had left. Even as Doctor Wright told him he had enough, he felt the time ticking so quickly and quietly - he could hear it, and it haunted him through all the minutes that he slept for days at a time.

Lying in a hospital bed all alone is what Louis was afraid of. He was afraid of being bedridden and with no one to talk to, despite his small voice and difficulty to keep conversations. Having someone there talking to him as he slept would have been just as good as anything else.

"Knock-knock."

Louis' eyes opened and he looked over at the door, watching Harry stood there with a plethora of flowers and plushies hugged against him tight.

"Hey," Louis said, so quiet it was almost lost in the room.

Harry stepped in and replaced the wilting bouquet on the bedside table, laying a tiny Yorkie plushy on Louis' chest to give him the cuddle that he couldn't. "I got back into animals." He setup the rest of the stuffed creatures on the chair opposite the bed, immediately pulling up another seat beside Louis. "But I'm not much collecting the little ones anymore. I do the big ones now, but I haven't got much yet. I have two 4-kilo ones. There's a festive African elephant and a dragon.

"So I remember you saying one time that you like my iron Yorkie. I wanted to give it to you, but I also wanted to give you something you could cuddle whilst you sleep. A metal block would be pretty not-so-nice."

Louis grabbed the plushy and looked into its eyes that were frighteningly large. "Thanks."

"Later, if you're feeling okay, maybe we can go catch a film. They're showing that scary one at the cinema at 7:45. Remember, you wanted to see that?"

"Okay."

Louis didn't mean to be blunt or make Harry feel bad, and he knew he was, but he was just too exhausted to talk to him. Or even look at him and smile because Harry really did make him feel better whenever he came round.

"Hey."

Harry scooted in closer.

"I don't want a Yorkie hug," Louis mumbled, holding his arms up slightly as he let the plushy tumble off him. "I want a Harry hug."

The boy grinned, leaning over his boyfriend to wrap him right up. "Love you so much," he said, and had been saying for months now.

"I love you, too."

Louis was alone again after a few minutes of Harry talking to him. He was told about the promotion Harry accepted, moving up to the fourth floor that was the ground just below Louis'. He learned about Harry's new plant collection, how he hung them along the window frame just outside his room, and that he was thinking to start up a stuffed animal collection because he wanted to bring Louis new ones every day he saw him, but he said he wouldn't most likely.

He wondered deeply why Harry could never stay long. He knew he had work, and that there was a strict policy that doctors with close relationships to patients cannot associate with said patients during work hours. But Harry left him with a kiss on the hand or on the fingers every time. Maybe he wouldn't stay long because Louis looked like an albino.

It would have felt nice to have someone care that much, is what Louis thought. He had thought once that he didn't need anyone to care for him, yet, that was all he could think about: all he wanted was someone to talk to before he died. If he was ever awake enough to talk.


	5. all gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> good things come with a price and louis has nothing left to give.
> 
> (don't leave- ane brun)

There were always two things with Louis. The fun thing and the good thing. He always had trouble finding fun in the good things he knew he should have done, but what he never could understand was that the good thing - the right thing - wasn't always fun. That is why he hadn't a job, many friends, patience or self control. He was always too involved in what he wanted to do. And he didn't want surgery.

Louis lay awake with Liam beside his bed, though he was hardly knowledgeable to what was going on round him. He had just had surgery that morning, and he had no clue what to talk about.

"Where's Harry..." he hummed.

Liam jumped awake, rubbing his eyes and as he moaned. "I don't know," he answered in reflex. "I reckon maybe downstairs at the reception."

The pain in his stomach was unbearable. It felt like he was missing everything in there, which essentially he was, and was replaced with a cornerstone. And his chest, as hard as it was for him to picture, felt like it was sat on by an elephant.

"W... Wan..."

Liam leaned in close to hear. "Hm?"

"Want... Harr-y..."

"I don't know if he can come yet. It's almost lunchtime, remember? He's going to come eat lunch with you in a bit. In half an hour."

Louis made a face at that. "...Dumbarse."

  
Liam rolled his eyes and changed the channel on the telly.

"W-Want... ha..."

"I get it!" Liam turned to Louis in frustration, fisting the remote in his hand. "You want Harry. I understand. I've understood for the past five hours, that. Your thanks is appreciated."

Louis shook his head so aggravated, but had done it so slightly as he was under influence of medication. "No," he whimpered, for his chest felt tight. "Want... ham and cheese."

"Ham and cheese?"

Louis nodded. "Vegan. V... Vegan... h-ham an..."

"Okay, okay, right. Because Harry's vegan, yeah?"

He nodded again, and he fell asleep just like that.

Louis had had a dream about clouds. He dreamt himself eating some, something that looked like pink candy floss, as he lay upon the clouds in the sky. He recalled the candy floss clouds tasting like how homely carpets smell, and the way the sky looked was a lot more translucent than anything, if Louis could make sense of it. He couldn't remember much before waking up despite his nakedness and the silent swarm of butterflies creeping toward him.

He'd woken up, however extremely terrified, to loud clumsiness across him in the room.

"Sorry," Harry sheepishly said, fallen over the recliner that kept all of Louis' gifts.

He didn't mind that. Seeing Harry, finally that day, he puckered his lips, making the boy grin and hurry over.

"You're having vegan food with me?" Harry said into the kiss, clearly taking advantage of Louis' lack of mouth to tease him. "You know I'm not holding you against your will, yeah? I can run down to the basement and get you crisps with real processed cheese on them."

If Louis could move his arms, he'd have smacked Harry in the head, but he only lay there limp and woozy, just barely comprehending the sass on this boy.

Liam had gone away for a cigarette leaving them to have together some vegan sandwiches, though Harry had to feed Louis very, very carefully and with caution as he was prone to choking whilst in this state. It made Louis feel stupid, feeling something apart from severe pain and nausea. He often turned his head away so that Harry wouldn't see him chew slowly, and even more heartbreaking, he wouldn't always accept the water Harry offered even though his throat felt itchy and parched because he didn't want to use the absorption straws.

When they finished, Louis fell asleep again and hadn't fully woken up until the night.

Harry came into his room before dinnertime. "Hey, Lou," he said quietly and with admiration. "How are you feeling?"

  
Louis made a doltish face, still heavily sedated and loopy. He nodded slowly but surely. "Okay," he sighed. "You going home?"

"No, I'm hanging out with you tonight, if that's all right."

"Yeah... that's cool." Louis kept nodding. "Where's Lame-O?"

Harry set down his rucksack beside the window and fluffed up the bouquet. " _Liam_ went home just now. He 's coming back later tonight for a couple hours to hang out. And-- This really pains me, but he wanted me to tell you specifically that he's going to make an illegal purchase of weed and 'hotbox the flat with you' when you get back. Now before you say anything, I really, _really_ don't want to hear your response unless it's 'I'll pass,' but you can nod and take that in. Take it in and _think_ about it, Louis."

Louis smiled adorably, very much liking Harry's playfulness. "You're... You're so cute," he beamed. "So, so cute."

"Why? Because I don't smoke?"

"'Cause you... don't like smoking."

"Yeah, that's what I said," Harry laughed, and suddenly had gotten a brilliant idea. He took out his phone and started filming their conversation, grinning to himself about how silly Louis looked on camera. "How did your surgery go, love?"

Louis smacked his lips, making faces for a long time until something hit him. "I had surgery?"

"I don't know," Harry teased him. "You did. Remember Liam took you to get your surgery this morning? They got all the cancer out."

"Did I bleed out?"

"No, but they got the cancer and that's what we were hoping for, wasn't it?"

Louis didn't react to what Harry had said. He was thinking about something - something rather important, and it made his monitor beep faster. "Harold?"

"What, babe?"

"Can you fuck me?"

Harry looked at Louis through the screen. "Um... No, I don't think right now."

"Why not?"

"Because we're at hospital," Harry explained humourously, "and I work here. Do you want me fired?"

Louis sighed and turned his head away. "Guess not." He turned back toward Harry, a daze in his eyes. "How's about later?"

The boy broke out laughing, covering his mouth so he wouldn't disturb the patients across them. "Not for a while, I don't think. You're supposed to just be resting until you've recovered. Have you walked today?"

Louis shook his head. "Said that... Said that I'm supposed to walk so I can... can leave, but..."

"Hm?"

"I wouldn't see you all day."

Harry stared at him in complete idiocy, shifting his legs round the chair he sat in so that he wouldn't feel so nauseous. "I would visit you at yours though. I'll bring you anything you want."

It seemed that Louis had fallen asleep again, but after a long moment, he pulled his lips between his teeth and coughed. "Harry?"

The receptionist snatched his phone back from his boyfriend's face, as he did indeed have it in his face, shooting back against the chair. "Hm?" Harry said, trying his absolute best to play cool.

Louis smacked his lips as he slowly looked down the bed. "Do I... I still have my dick?"

"Yeah, you do," the boy laughed, zooming in on his love's face that had turned sad suddenly. "What?"

He didn't answer. He moved his head away, too bothered with himself and severed speech to keep talking. But then he'd forgotten that he was bothered and looked down at his groin. "Did they get my bladder?"

There was a small silence.

"Yeah, love, they did."

"Whole thing?"

"Yeah."

Louis' lip quivered as he stared down at himself. "Did they get it, too?"

"Get what?"

"They did, haven't they?"

Harry shut off his phone then. He only stared at Louis through his own eyes, drowning in guilt because he'd always known what this boy dealt with in his journey through cancer. He'd known since the very first day the tumor was found, and he'd always known how much Louis didn't want surgery. It killed Harry having to tell him of everything that was no longer in his body.

Louis started crying before Harry could bring himself to tell him that, yes, they got his prostate, because Louis already knew. Louis knew, and all he could sum up whilst going in and out of his head was "all gone". He said it over and over again, and the more he said it, the more frustrated with obvious woe Harry was.

Laying in that hospital bed, Louis thought he should have died a long time ago. The pain just wasn't worth it, and as terrible as it is, Harry wasn't enough. Sometimes he would have liked to see his family, especially Doris and Ernest. Knowing that if he died in that hospital bed, he would never, ever would have seen them again. He would only die with the memory and the vessel he was in; his damnable albino-looking vessel.

After a while of laying there, Harry asleep and curled up in close beside him, Liam down the hall at the food machine, Louis pressed the call button.

Miss Yvette came subsequently. "How are you feeling, Louis?"

"I want to walk now."


	6. his insight is disturbing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> counting gifts takes a lot longer than louis thought.
> 
> (for you- angus and julia stone)

"Are you sure you're doing okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

"You haven't come the past two sessions. Have you decided you want to stop this round?"

"No, I just... I want to spend some time home. I miss my family."

"Of course. I understand. Call me if there's ever anything you need. You have my personal number; it's yours to use. Should I schedule your next appointment for Wednesday?"

Louis had his head on the pillow, Ernest sleeping close beside him, his little stuffed Loola hugged tightly in his arms. Louis smoothed the thin pieces of his brother's hair, and really looking at it, feeling the fine locks beneath his fingers, he found he and Ernest weren't that different. He was the spitting image of Louis if he thought about it. But if he were told before his first trip to hospital that he would have no hair just like his wee brother, too, he'd have laughed.

Louis held the phone closer to his ear. "Yes, that's fine."

Everything had been terrible since coming home. Louis couldn't walk efficiently on his own for weeks. He got round the flat by a wheelchair or a walker for elderly people. He'd never been more frustrated, miserable and humiliated in his life, having need to use the toilet fairly often but not having the convenience to properly go. His mother stopped by regularly to have meals with him or see if she could help in any way, though there was nothing she could do that Liam couldn't.

Liam was always there when he wasn't working, which didn't take up too much of the day, but as he worked, Harry stayed. Yet when neither Harry, Liam or his mother were available, Louis had to rely on his eldest sisters, stepdad and neighbours that he didn't know. Although in the rarest cases, when he was in the flat all alone for a few minutes, he had to help himself, struggling to even reach for his water on the nightstand, and he never felt so worthless.

The bad times faded, however, as well as his agony, and soon enough Louis could manage things on his own: dressing himself, washing, walking on his feet (though uneasily) all became everyday tasks. He learned to cope without soda pop, as he was no longer allowed to drink it, and grew some patience. He learned to have patience with Liam, slowly reforming the old kinship they had when they were teenagers. And Harry, dear boy, hadn't once spent a tear on his waning boyfriend.

"Sweetest, I bought you something," Harry said once after getting off work. He'd come into Louis' bedroom and pulled socks, leg warmers and a pair of boot cuffs from behind his back.

"What are those little things?" Louis asked, pointing at the brown wool.

"These are called boot cuffs." Harry waggled them. "They go round your ankles. You're supposed to wear them with boots short like mine, but you can do them with any shoes, I reckon."

"Come here, give me them socks."

Harry grinned and sat at the end of Louis' bed, putting each pair on his feet so he could see how they looked. He fancied the leg warmers.

Looking past Ernest in his bed and at his feet, he really minded not having anything on them. They felt cold and bear now that it was winter, numb like the rest of him, especially his lower abdomen. It was in times when he had no one to talk to that he missed the things Harry gave him almost daily. Harry gave him so much he'd run out of space to keep it all, starting to put things on his walls and ceiling, just the way his boyfriend did.

Liam helped him hang a painting of a dinosaur eating a globe one night, grabbing a chair from the kitchen because Louis wasn't tall enough to reach over his window.

"What's this painting even supposed to mean?" Liam groaned, helping Louis adjust the symmetry. "A dinosaur with a globe in its mouth. That's just... morbid. It doesn't mean anything."

Louis stood still to catch his breath. "Maybe it's saying _what if the world didn't destroy the dinosaurs? If they hadn't gone extinct, would they have destroyed the world instead?_ "

Liam looked up at him oddly. "You get all that from a painting?"

"No," Louis said smiling. "That's Harry's insight."

"Hm. Disturbing mind, that boy's got."

Louis never thought of Harry that way, though he needn't tell Liam. He didn't feel he had to. Harry's insight was disturbing, is what Louis thought, but what he thought of Harry was his business. He was allowed to love him and not feel compelled to discuss his feelings. He'd never felt so ill-character to go on and on about someone, and not even Harry could change that, though he did grow out of himself and let his thoughts run wild about every little thing that Harry was. He thought about Harry all the time, but he wouldn't announce it.

"Lou," Charlotte said as she knocked gently upon his opened door. "He's here. I can help you get ready?"

Louis shook his head, immediately feeling nauseous. "No, I'm... I'm fine." He stroked Ernest's soft, porcelain face. "Can you just bring me my Vans and cuffs, please?"

His sister retrieved his shoes and boot cuffs from where his mother had organised them and stood at the bed's footboard. "No socks? It's cold out."

"We're just going to his."

"Okay, but don't take your shoes off, stinky." Charlotte put the cuffs and Vans on his feet, laced them up tightly so he wouldn't have to worry, and gave him his beanie as he asked.

And Louis stood up. His joggers fell loose on his legs, the old shirt he had cut up the morning after his and Harry's first time fitting much bigger than it used to, and he looked finished. He looked through with the entirety of life, bothered by the mere utterance of hellos and the voice of his doctor who had gradually become someone that Louis pitied. He was annoyed by sunlight that greeted him in his wake only because he had woken up. The cancer had come back after surgery, and Louis had scarce reasons to keep breathing.

Harry let Louis in, both kicking off their shoes before grabbing tea and heading to the back to lie down.

Louis lay in the receptionist's arms, falling asleep within minutes, and as he did, and whilst Harry played with Louis' little hair that had grown back, Louis dreamt of something he couldn't remember later.

"Baby."

Louis stirred awake. "Mmm."

"We can't sleep down here. Let's go back to yours - it's getting late."

"Mmm."

"Come on, don't be lazy."

He hugged Harry round the neck, cuddling in closer to keep their warmth. "Uh-uh."

"We can't sleep down here, love. We'll freeze our butts off."

"Upstairs."

Harry rubbed one of his feet with the other. "Um... okay," he said unsurely. "But if I trip carrying you up, it's on you."

Harry had done just that. He nearly fell down the stairs with his boy in his arms, and that had slightly upset Louis. He'd wished he had fallen, the smallest chance of dying any other way that wasn't due to cancer being so inviting.

Harry maneuvered round his room, bumping into lots of things that Louis never knew were there. He'd step on something, knock over something else, then tell Louis not to open his eyes. But after some glass had broken, Louis decided to wake up.

He looked round the dark bedroom, feeling afraid after thinking he'd seen a figure in the corner, though it were only stacks of boxes, books, paperwork, posters. However, they were everywhere. Things were piled high against the walls and cluttered the floor, making it impossible to see an inch of the carpet. There were things everywhere, and Louis sincerely felt as suffocated as Doctor Wright tried convincing him he wasn't.

"Oh, my God," Louis breathed.

Harry let him down on the bed which was the only area not drowning in mess. Though it was obvious Harry dumped everything from the mattress on the floor beforehand.

Harry stood there rubbing his arm. "Um..."

  
"What's going on?"

"It's nothing, love, don't worry about it."

"'Don't worry'?" Louis looked up at the ceiling that seemed like it would fall on top of him. "Harry, you... You've cluttered your room, okay, y-you--"

"No, I can... I'll organise it. I'll clean it up, I'll rearrange some things."

"No, you've got no space."

The receptionist eyed his room as if just seeing it for the first time; as if suddenly realising how much he had. But then he denied it all. "I can make space," he argued. "It's only in my room. If I put a little bit in small places round the flat, it'll even out."

"What?" Louis was appalled at the idea. "No! What are you saying?"

"It's not that much. I can move it somewhere else."

"It's not about where you put it, Harry! You're hoarding, that's what the problem is!"

The boy looked at all of his things, completely distressed. "I'm not hoarding..."

"Why did you do this?"

"You were in hospital," he admitted. "You had surgery, you lost everything, you couldn't see your family. I just wanted to make you feel better."

If Louis could sum up the words to describe his heartache for this boy, he'd have been a different person. Louis couldn't even comprehend what he was seeing. He couldn't tell what was in Harry's room if not the entire world and several stuffed animals.

They slept there, the young vegan boy cuddling Louis closely against his chest, his heart beating so softly and quietly like water on cotton. And Louis cuddled a bunny rabbit.

"Why are you hoarding?" Louis asked after a long time of laying in Harry's arms.

"You're not happy. And I don't know what to do."

"So you thought saving all this stuff for me would make me happy? You would bring me something new every single day just so I'd forget all my troubles?"

"I had hopes."

Louis turned to face him, dropping the bunny rabbit on the ground. He hugged Harry like a pillow as he scooted in, pulling the blanket father over themselves.

"It's stuff, Harry," Louis told him. "It's all just stuff. What did you expect me to do with it? Move it from your flat to mine? I can't have all this stuff."

"I didn't expect you to fall in love with it all. I didn't expect anything like that. If you threw it all away tomorrow, I wouldn't mind, but I wanted to see you smile, just for a little bit. And I don't want you to be alone."

"I'm not alone. I'm not sad."

Harry looked away for a second, then smiled. "Oh." He took Louis' hand in his, kissing his fingers over and over again. "You kind of drift off and think about what you want to say, but then you don't say it. You just sit and listen for a while. When you do that, I can tell."

"Do you want my attention? Is that it?" Louis was on the verge of crying. "I'll give you attention, love. I'll visit you at work, I'll call you more often--"

"Don't take this the wrong way," Harry said, smiling still, "but you don't need to worry about me."

"What? Do you think I feel obligated or something?"

He didn't respond.

"How can you think that? I want to worry about you, I want to be concerned for you. There was something wrong with you, Harry, and you didn't tell me. I care so much about you. I'm not the only one who matters here, okay? You matter to me. Why didn't you tell me something was wrong?"

"There aren't enough hours in a day to explain all the things wrong with me."


	7. I can see straight through you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> excuses are so normal to louis he has no idea what normal is
> 
> (hold you- thom hell)

It had been a year since Louis met Doctor Wright, a year Louis had known Harry, and a year he had cancer. It'd been 12 months. 12 months of figuring everything would turn out fine in the end. But those 12 months gave Louis a sense of reality, finally, for once in his life. That long, lengthy year of medicine and therapy and throw up and scalpels seemed so short once it ended. It had snuck by like a serpent through everyone's birthday, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day and Easter, and then, when it was suddenly Louis' anniversary, the months came crashing upon him with no mercy. And it felt unreal. Being twenty-four, Louis was so young yet so old. Like God had pointed at everyone and gave them age all at once, they were all suddenly so, outrageously old.

"Since when were you grey?" Louis asked his doctor a week after the year.

"I've had greys for a few months," Steven Wright told him, taking a sip from his ancient thermos. "Since when did you start shaving?"

"Yesterday."

On his anniversary, Louis had gone to the restaurant where he had his first real date. He and Harry had the same waitress who wore the same golden eye shadow, the same blond hair and same smooth face. Except she was pregnant. The men wore the same cufflinks, and the ladies wore the same gowns, still proving Louis of how much better they were than him.

He put his napkin in his lap and touched his bit of hair. "I feel like everyone's staring at me."

"Because you look beautiful," Harry said kindly. "You're the handsomest man here and everyone knows it."

Louis stopped accepting Harry's gifts soon after discovering his problem. It was in fact a hoarding disorder - OCD - and they'd spent days cleaning Harry's room, removing absolutely everything. Louis took some of the things that Harry wanted, needed, him to have, throwing away most of the rest. They put some things in storage and Harry gave Louis the key.

That was one wrong he made right. Louis felt accomplished. Like his life wasn't a complete waste anymore. He felt he'd done something correct without feeling terrible for once.

But that was a long time ago.

Louis was sat in the living room with a bin of popcorn, an old '50s film on the telly and festive music playing in the kitchen, when Liam came home in late afternoon. "Hey, friend-O!" Louis chimed.

Liam didn't greet him back.

As Louis turned toward the door, he saw Harry getting yanked inside by the back of the shirt, edged in front of him, a horrible, sad frown on the boy's face.

"Tell him," Liam demanded.

Louis looked up at Harry, watching him anxiously rub his neck that was red and irritated. "Tell me what?"

When Harry didn't speak, Liam pulled him in closely to whisper. "Tell him or I will," he hissed.

Harry still said nothing.

"I caught your boy outside the--"

"All right, you don't have to be a fucking prick!"

"Then say it."

There was a lack of air in Louis' lungs, which mustn't have been good. His check hurt. His head hurt. He felt absolutely faint. He felt the way that Harry looked. He felt like he may die of anticipation. Of the puncturing suspense that made his ears ring.

Harry fixed his hair and tucked it behind his ear and looked up at the ceiling. "Chat over tea?"

"No," Louis said through his teeth. "What are you bothering me for? Just tell me what it is already."

Biting his lips much too brutally, the receptionist seemed to turn into his quiet, anxiety-devoured self that he was a year back. "Louis," he started shakily. "I just want you to know that I love you so much and I would never try to hurt you--"

"Spare me... the bullshit."

"I don't think it's a big deal. To be honest, I wouldn't have told you, but I guess I have to." He rubbed his face in frustration and dumped everything out on the table like all of his useless collections. "I made a noose."

Louis frowned. "'A noose.'"

"Yeah."

"What the hell have you done that for?"

"I don't know."

Liam pushed him like he would a younger brother in all his spite. "Stop lying to him!"

"Liam!" Louis had a vilely angry look in his eyes. "Can you just... Please? For a second? If you don't mind, please, stop shoving sticks up everyone's fucking arse."

Liam left. He'd gone out of frustration and disdain, and after he slammed the front door, shaking the photo frames along the walls, Louis wandered upstairs, and Harry followed him like a dog.

The elder boy entered the bedroom, lingering as he waited for Harry to join him before shutting the door. He sat on the bed, staring at Harry awkwardly stand far, far away from him. "Why did you make a noose?"

"I wasn't going to use it," Harry proclaimed. "I just got bored."

"You were bored?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

He picked at his nails, never once looking up to see if Louis decided to take his eyes off of him or not. "I told you, it's not a big deal," he whispered under his breath, the air vent almost carrying it off. "I wasn't going to do anything."

Louis didn't bring it up again after that day. He didn't remind Harry of the red marks on his neck and he didn't remind him that Liam found him tossing a rope over the tree behind the hospital. He couldn't bring himself to remind Harry that he wasn't stupid and that he wouldn't be taken for a fool, but doing just that, he was the biggest fool of them all for trying to spare Harry's feelings. He couldn't say all of the things that he wanted Harry to realise. He wanted to tell Harry: _I can see straight through you and your dumb lies_. But he couldn't. He simply never brought it up again. Of all the things Harry admitted to when Louis would ask, attempted suicide was what he wished he'd lied about. If he'd kept lying and said he was taking an ill child from the tree, Louis wouldn't have felt so set for abandonment.

When the Christmas holiday ended, Louis couldn't have been happier.

He'd missed all of winter that year. He'd spent the coldest parts of the year in bed, too weak to walk himself to the toilet or wipe his nose when it bled. He'd lay there and watch the snow through the window. But in springtime, when all the frost and snow melted, he went ice skating.

"You can't let me fall!" He held onto Harry's coat, his legs wobbly.

"I won't," Harry said, taking Louis' hand in his. "If you fall, I promise I'll fall, too."

"God, you're supposed to catch me, not make us both look like fools."

"Falling for you isn't foolish."

Louis made a face at that. "How did you come up with that so quickly? You've got them written down on your palm, haven't you?"

"You keep me on my toes, love," the younger lad explained. "I was never this fast at coming up with stuff before I met you. I was actually fairly rubbish."

Louis would have coated an "obviously" in a lifetime's worth of sarcasm if he hadn't lost his balance on that manmade skating floor and fallen on his hands and knees. He felt a breeze in places he shouldn't have felt breezes.

"Oh, my God." Louis sat back on his bum.

  
Harry's first impulse was to trip, rolling over onto his back as he faked a fall, and scooted across the ice on his bottom toward the other. "You okay?"

"No."

"What happened?"

Louis cupped his mouth so that no one would see him speak. "I ripped my jeans in the back."

Harry tried not to laugh. "Don't you worry," he assured him. "I'll rescue you, my love." He stood up and shrugged his coat off, holding it out to cover Louis as he carefully, unskillfully got to his skates. Harry tied the sleeves round the boy's hips and kissed the top of his beanie.

"This is so embarrassing," Louis whined. "Tear down the arse of my jeans and two coats. I'm clashing, Harry."

"Baby, everyone's been falling tonight. I bet nobody even noticed."

"I'm not wearing pants."

"Why not?" Harry loudly laughed.

"Don't bring attention to us!" Louis grabbed the boy's hand and led him across the floor, taking very small steps and slipping every now and then.

"You've got to practice more," Harry said, an arm round his boy to keep him upright.

"I know, I know, you don't have to tell me. I'm clearly aware I suck balls at this, Harold, considering everyone here's just seen mine." Louis reached for the bar and pulled himself to the wall, turning and getting a good look at his date's goosebumps. Louis undid the coat on his waist. "Here."

"No, you keep it."

"I'll cover myself with my own," he said, holding the coat out. "Here."

Harry smiled and slipped his arm in the sleeve. "Okay. But I would rather be cold than everyone see that perfect little arse again."

Louis would have blushed if he hadn't been shocked out of his skin. Harry's arms were covered in scratches and fleshy burn scars, his skin absolutely blistered.

"What happened to your arms?"

Harry nonchalantly looked down at his bicep. "I got a rash the other day," he affirmed, getting into his coat. "Didn't realise I was allergic to cats until I slept in your sweater. I should've washed it first 'cause I picked it up off the floor which was my mistake. There was literally cat hair all over it. It's on my back, as well."

"What about your wrist?"

"They're years old, love." Harry took Louis' face in his gloves, making a little boy of him as he pressed his cheeks together. Harry smiled and kissed him. "Don't worry about me."

Louis had never stopped thinking of that day. He remembered it for the good memories that he wasn't disgustingly sick. Only, though, the fact that Harry's scars were older than their relationship, that Louis had never noticed them once, made him grow guilty. How could he not have noticed?

After 12 months had gone by, Louis only then realised that there was something wrong with everyone - things he never would have guessed. Everything was so, terribly wrong, and he just wasn't strong enough to fight cancer anymore. He had to make the decision between spending his last days worrying about himself or all his other halves.


	8. I hate cancer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> louis never knew a little flower pot could change his life so much.
> 
> (you're smiling (but I don't believe you)- margaret glaspy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're nearing an end of all this and im so sad that its gonna be over :( 2 more chapters to go i guess.
> 
> thanks so much to everyone who's read and commented, it means the world to me.

"I have this... problem. I'm going to die soon and I'm not sure how to tell my family."

"It's funny. I've had so many patients ask me the same question and I've never been more insistent on giving the right answer. Truth is, though, Louis, there is no right answer. I feel incredibly confident that you'll know what to say when the time comes."

"But you have to know. I'm so unsure of what to say, how to say it, if I should say anything at all. I know that if I die, some people won't ever forgive me."

"You will not be punished for dying. Do you understand? You've fought so hard for two years, you've given everything. I could not be prouder of the man I see right here in front of me. Anyone who holds a grudge against you is... not worthy of the rest of your time."

Another year had gone by. There was nothing about it that wasn't like the first. The only difference between the first year and the second was that Louis was engaged, he'd stopped therapy, and Liam died of a drug overdose.

It was something no one saw coming. Liam was as healthy as a bird, yet passed away so suddenly after shooting his last dose of heroin. The memorial was lovely. Louis didn't cry watching his greatest friend in the entire world be lowered into the ground, and neither did Harry which wasn't surprising. Louis went home alone at night after the funeral, did a full face of makeup, rang for a pizza, stripped down to his pants and crawled into bed, and then he cried. He cried for hours, falling asleep and waking up with Harry by his side.

Three months later, the 23-year-old receptionist vegan man proposed. It happened midsummer at the flower shop when Harry went to buy new hanging pots for his windows. His plants were one of the collections he couldn't bring himself to rid.

"Do you like these small ones?" Louis asked across the room.

"Which ones?"

"These here? Them baby-coloured ones?"

Harry walked toward him, his chest pressed against his back as he looked up at where Louis looked. "The blue one, yeah. Take it down for me?"

Louis grunted and put his hands on his again hairless head in embarrassment. "You know I can't reach that, you dick."

"You didn't even try."

"Uh-oh. Did I hear a talking dick?"

"All right, all right, I'll get it." Harry gestured him aside, grabbing the little blue pot like it wasn't seven feet high. He looked at the vase, checked it inside and all round to measure the efficiency, handing it off to Louis next. "I need a second opinion."

Louis took the vase and peeked inside the way that Harry did. He gaped.

The receptionist grinned widely. "What?"

Louis sobbed, his eyes watering as he covered his face with his jumper sleeve.

"Uh-oh. What's in there?"

Louis said nothing to him, for he was so choked up on feelings and the attack of a thousand heartbreaks and subsequent solace he earned over the course of two years. Once he realised he wasn't breathing, he gasped for air as Harry took the pot from his hand.

"Yikes," the lad beamed, peering inside it. "Never seen something like this before. It says _'MARRY ME?'_."

Louis peeked out from behind his arm, frowning terribly about his mixed emotions, then started to cry exceptionally loud as Harry took a shining silver ring from the pot and got down on one knee.

Louis mused on that event more and more each day following. How he could love someone so much, care for them so easily, put them before himself, was nearly suffocating. He couldn't understand it. He couldn't understand how Harry always managed to lift his spirits, make him laugh even if it hurt, and when it hurt too much, Harry only made him smile just because he had to settle for _something_. The mere fact that he had complete and total control over Louis' happiness gave them both a frightening kind of anxiety. Louis felt like his mind, body and soul belonged inside another person, and (Louis knew) Harry was afraid he might ruin all of him. Yet Louis couldn't care less about himself anymore. He was over his looks. He was far over the expectations that he put on himself and far over his self-love.

On a Sunday that was definitely too hot to use up outside, Louis phoned his urologist to tell him he wanted to stop treatment. There wasn't anything within the phone call that surprised either of them. He'd called, gave his best reasons to give into the illness, apologised, and said nothing else. He wouldn't tell Steven, his brilliant, wonderful doctor, about the crush he always had on him. Louis figured, of all the secrets he needed to clear up before he left, that one needn't be disclosed.

Louis grew his hair out.

"Where do you want to be married?" Harry asked as they walked along the hill of their fourth date. "Somewhere good like LA or New York City. Anywhere. I'll make it happen."

Louis scratched the scruff on his jawline, just loving the feel of it and fact that it was there and not in patches. "You know, I've always wanted to go to Stockholm."

"Sweden, huh?"

"No, not Sweden." He ran his hand through his hair, slightly ruffling it. "I want to be in England for the wedding. Sweden for the honeymoon."

"Yeah, I could fancy that," Harry agreed happily. "Maybe a good, old-fashioned backyard wedding with all your friends and family, then straight to Stockholm we go."

Louis couldn't help but laugh as he picked a spot under a great tree, plopping down on his bum and hidden with the shade. "Just my friends and family? You don't want yours there? Reckon your sister would fancy something like that."

Harry sat down with a grunt. "Yeah, maybe. I just... haven't seen her in a while, is all. I wouldn't know if she'd want to go."

"To her own brother's wedding?"

"It isn't like that," Harry laughed. "I said something to her, something I never should have said, and she won't talk to me."

"You're kidding. What did you say?"

"Well, it wasn't entirely my fault. She, um, tried to make me go to the, uh... the rehabilitation centre across town and I told her I wouldn't. She was worried about the hoarding thing from ages ago because I didn't tell her until just recently, and she still tried to make me go. She basically thought to call me worthless, so I called her a bitch and told her to never speak to me again. Long story short, I've ruined my relationship with my sister."

Louis frowned. He looked down at his knees, his arms hugged tightly round his legs as he listened.

Harry chuckled, putting an arm over his fiancé's shoulders. "I wouldn't want her there to embarrass me anyway."

"Harry?"

"Yeah."

"Don't you have mates?" He couldn't help but ask after months and months of figuring. "I never see you hangout with anyone except the people from hospital, and even then it doesn't seem like you like them. You've got mates, right?"

The younger man clearly didn't need to think about it long. "Not really," he admitted. "I mean, I'm not a very approachable person, love. I'm super awkward and anxious meeting new people, but you're, like, the only person I was never afraid to talk to. But your mum. Meeting your mum was hands-down the scariest thing I've ever had to do."

Louis never realised it, nor had he ever been told, but Harry had interaction issues. He wouldn't look anyone in the eyes when speaking, and he wore an obvious antsy attitude when someone he didn't know touched him. It hardly occurred to Louis that Harry had a social anxiety problem, something he himself never once struggled with, and that bothered him. He was engaged to this man, and he only knew the things that Harry wanted him to know.

They were to marry in the fall. On the week of the wedding, however, after he came home with his white tuxedo with the black collar and bowtie, hanging it up the closest, Louis got a nosebleed. It pooled on the carpet wherever he went, trailing behind him like death as he collapsed on the bathroom floor. He sat hunched over the toilet, red splashing into the bowl. He reached into his pocket and urgently phoned for Harry.

Harry showed up moments before the ambulance that took Louis to hospital.

Nothing was wrong with him. He was dying. That was all.

"We can't do the wedding, my love," Harry told his fiancé after he gathered his usual health once again. "We've got to change the date."

"No!" Louis was crying, his hand in Harry's so small and weak. "You said we'd get married!"

"I know I did and I meant that. We just can't get married right now, you aren't well enough. What if this happened again? We'd come right back here, baby, and--"

"No, Harry! No, no!" Louis exclaimed, curling his fingers in the boy's grasp. "We don't have time. There... There isn't time. I don't want go to my wedding in a wheelchair."

Harry got up from the chair beside Louis' bed and hugged him so tightly he could have broken his bones, pressing kisses all along his neck and shoulder.

Louis spoke to Doctor Wright the next day before leaving. He asked him how he should tell his family that he's dying, and the man hadn't the answer.

Harry carried Louis round that day. He didn't need to be carried, but Louis simply didn't want to be wheeled down the sidewalk anymore, and he was just too frail to walk. So Harry carried him.

He carried Louis up the stairs, gently undressing him for a bath that was filled with bubbles and surrounded by candles and drowning in music. Louis enjoyed that bath. He enjoy Harry sat behind him, washing him, touching him, talking to him even if he didn't talk back. He wouldn't know what to say. He had no idea how to respond to lost pet stories and childhood memories. All that he could do was appriciate that Harry had so many memories to look forward to, even knowing that he himself wouldn't be in them.

In the end, when a good time came to talk about it, Louis didn't apologise for having cancer. That's what it would have meant if he had apologised on behalf of himself after death. He had so much thanks to give his illness. He wouldn't apologise for any of it.

  
Harry pulled his fiancé into the coziest pajamas he could find, boot cuffs and all, laying him down on the mattress. "Take up as much of the bed as you want," Harry said, pulling the blanket over the boy.

Louis fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Rolled onto his stomach, his legs directly together, arms folded under his head, there was no way he could take up any significant amount of space. For once in a long time, he was completely relaxed.

As he slept, he dreamt of fields of flowers. Only the flowers weren't really flowers. When Louis let go of the balloons he held in his hands, the flowers burst and took off into the sky like butterflies. He stood there in that field that seemed a lot like the picnic hill, looking up at the empyrean of flittering insects, and it was all truly heavenly.

When Louis woke up, the room was blanket dark. He heard nothing but the clatter of the fan, his faint breathing, and the rumbling, smooth sounds that made up Harry's snores. Everything was quiet and still. There was perfectly no life outside of the room.

Louis could sense Harry beside him. Sense him because they weren't pressed up against each other or breathing each other in. The room was warm, so they kept their own space to keep cool. Though there was one area of Louis' body that felt achingly hot. His lower back, slick with sweat, was bothered by Harry's hand that was, too, perspiring.

Louis couldn't move. As if he were still sleeping, his muscles remained at rest the way they did when he was younger due to hypnopompic paralysis. Only this wasn't that. Louis hadn't suffered sleep paralysis since he was fifteen, nor did he have trouble breathing as terribly as he did now. Cancer had officially made him futile.

Louis moved his mouth. "...Harry?"

The receptionist lay flat on his chest, too far into slumber to hear the other's voice, the fan or his own snoring.

"Harry."

"Mmm."

It pained him to even talk. It was so much easier to lay there and listen to the fervent life of the room and just not speak. To not actually be there, to not exist during the night, would have been easier than trying to steal that sleeping boy's attention. He could have closed his eyes, unable to see a thing with them open anyhow, and dreamt further on about whatever it was he wanted. But that was the first thing - the easier thing - and Louis had no intentions to sought it.

He lay there dead on the mattress. "Will you make love to me?"

Listening to Harry sigh, he expected him to say no. But the boy sighed and sat up on his knees, rubbing his eyes like a child. "Yeah."

He took a moment to yawn, to take his hair out of the bun that was already falling apart. He'd leaned over the elder lad, slipping his hands onto his warm, soft skin as he kissed his shoulders, tenderly massaging him where he usually felt sore. "I love you," he whispered against his spine.

Louis ignored the dryness of his throat. "I love you."

The approach Harry chose took minutes. Minutes of the two laying together enjoying each other's presence though Louis had done nothing by lay there and let Harry admire him. Yet what he didn't realise sooner was that that was all he needed to ever do.

"Spread your legs." The younger nudged Louis' knees apart after pulling down his pajama bottoms, Louis using all his strength to lift his hips.

Everything didn't last long. Harry finished rather quickly, his fiancé being an extremely tight fit after going so long without that sort of intimacy. Near a month it had been, and Harry couldn't last five minutes.

It didn't matter. Louis wasn't much bothered by any of it, hardly felt a thing in regards of pleasure. After surgery it was hard for him to enjoy sex again, but because it was with Harry, he alway tried.

This time wasn't like those times. Louis found himself whimpering through every second because it hurt. No matter how slowly Harry went for him, he weakly held onto the sheets knowing well that he wouldn't get an erection or reach a climax or be touched in the one spot within himself that used to be there.

He did it for Harry.

The boy sighed, resting his head on Louis' shoulder as he caught his breath. He kissed Louis' cheek and moved to the over side of the bed, tying off his condom and pulling the duvet over himself again.

After a while, Louis turned onto his side, and Harry grabbed him instinctively.

"You're so warm," Harry purred, wrapping the boy up in his arms. "So cuddly."

  
"You're making me sweat."

He grinned. "Sorry."

"Harold?"

"Yeah."

"You're happy, aren't you?"

"You'll never know how much."

Louis ran his finger across the lad's bare chest, tracing the tattoos that he couldn't see but knew were there because he had stared at them so many times. "What do you think most about me?"

He could feel Harry tense up, but he chuckled regardless. "You splitting arse on ice in front of everyone. Can never think that too much."

Supposedly, the power had gone out then. The ceiling fan began slowing its rotation, the water heater shut off, and the emergency light in the backyard flickered green in through the windows.

Louis could see one side of Harry's face that was his right side. Their eyes were locked on each other before they could actually see. As if they'd been looking into the other from the moment Louis decided to make his last mound of energy of the night by turning to face his sweet, beloved, quirky sweetheart. They looked into each other's eyes, though it was more than looking. They drowned themselves. They drowned in memories of nostalgic perfection, going forward and back between then and now, racing against time that was slowly ticking away from them the longer they reminisced on things that could not be relived. They dove into pools of gone years, holding onto the good times, grieving over the bad, and even those - the terribly bad happenings - were grasped so tightly because they happened. Every moment, every second gone by, was time well spent because they were spent together. No bloody soul could ever amount to how greatly Louis ached for burdening his precious, angelic young Harry with the fact that they would run out of time so soon.

Louis, though, looked upon the reality of Harry's eyes after a short second of worrying, and witnessed nothing remotely close to what he'd been feeling. Harry - quiet and thoughtful - was still, very weary and careful, smiling.

Louis grew up problematically. He never learned how to choose right from wrong when wrong was so appealing. He only ever cared about himself, pleasing himself, loving himself, caring for nothing but himself and sex. His mind was constantly occupied, looking round a crowded room and feeling like every man in the perimeter wanted something to do with him. He'd thought he was the most beautiful, most important human alive, and he wasn't. He was never more handsome than any other man and he was never more chief than any other person. He chose to be a god in his own little world, and then, like a foul cancer, when all of his naïve hope seemed lost, Harry made him feel stupid for spelling his name when he couldn't. Every ounce of admiration Louis had inside and beyond all his entirety was sucked out of his vanity and put into confinement, safe and sound, just for his boy who he loved from the start.

And so, now knowing how to choose right over wrong, holding onto hero worship for someone dear to him, he'd spend it all. Louis would spend, use, provide, waste, scrape up every last dripping bit of thirsty love that he'd ever felt and been given and repay the light of his life for always wearing that damning smile.

"Are you okay?"

Harry's face fell. Whether it were of shock, confusion, soreness of the mouth, he wiped away the irrelevant grin that ate every emotion he'd ever had for two years. Louis never felt guiltier.

The corners of the lad's lips painfully turned his dubiety upside down before Louis frowned, his eyes crinkling as if tasting something awful. There it was hidden. The part of Harry that Louis never knew.

Louis breathed slowly and chose to ask again. "Are you okay, sugar?"

The boy didn't falter. It seemed he would never allow Louis to descry him. As Louis waited - waited for proof that he would never, ever know him the way he yearned to - tears started building up in the boy's eyes.

Harry's face, just like before, had fallen, but didn't rework the strategic dimply glint. Instead of forcing that beautiful smile back on his lovely lips where it belonged, a soft, fast exhale came from him, bursting out like he couldn't breathe. Once he lost that breath, he was losing another, and then another, sobbing and rasping and whimpering through broken gulps of air.

Harry clawed at Louis' skin, tugging his body closer as he pushed himself urgently across the mattress, making the most agonising of sounds as he gasped against Louis' chest, tears drenching the boy's neck. Harry climbed on top of him, straddling his jutting hips and holding onto him like he may slip away.

"I don't want you to leave me!" Harry wailed, shaking traumatically whilst hugging Louis' neck. "I'm in love with you! I don't want you to go, baby, please! I... I'm nothing without you. I'm s-such shit without you, I'm so worthless without you!"

Louis could hardly move, Harry weighing him down, pain in his chest capturing all his will to hug the boy back.

"I'm sorry I lied to you. I'm so, so fucking sorry," Harry sobbed, his voice breaking. "I wasn't bored and... a-and I don't have a cat allergy. I'm so sorry I lied. I just couldn't take losing you."

He paused to wiggle the duvet over them, trapping himself with Louis under the disgustingly sweltered cover so that all they had to breathe was each other. Harry was hyperventilating, Louis could barely breathe regardless, but their hearts managed to keep beating along.

Harry pressed frightened, wet kisses across the elder man's neck, face, chest and anywhere he could reach without damaging their bare skin contact.

Louis couldn't get enough of that. He couldn't get enough of the sweet, sweet sounds that Harry fought as he cried for him no matter how ashamed he felt for making him cry. For making him hurt himself and want to end his precious life because he couldn't live on knowing that Louis wouldn't be there. He could not get enough of the closure he'd been craving for far too long. All he ever wanted Harry to give him was his love, faithfulness and troubles. He always wanted to rid Harry of his troubles, and Harry never let him until now. Until it was too late.

"Love of my life," Louis whispered, lifting his heavy hands onto the boy's thighs. "When I stop breathing, when my heart stops beating, and when everyone else has moved on, you've got to let me go."

  
Harry kissed Louis' lips, holding his face between his soft, moist hands, tears diving onto Louis' skin.

"You have to let me go, Harry."

The boy shook his head. "No." He didn't give Louis the chance to beg. He crawled off of his ill fiancé, tucking his tangled hair behind his ears, and kissed his body. Harry brought his red, bitten lips to all the secret places on Louis' vessel that only he knew and was allowed to know, touching and grasping his arms and tummy, leaving ghosts of his fingers all over him. Harry gingerly pulled Louis' leg round his waist, sucking his fingers and bringing them down to circle the lad's used, numb hole. "Won't you miss this?" he hummed, taking Louis' member in the other hand, gently working him so, very desperately. "Won't you miss the way I touch you, the way my cock feels inside you? How I mark you up with my mouth?"

"Harry--"

He slipped a finger inside of him. Louis grunted.

"I won't ever touch anyone else like this. I'll always be yours, only yours."

Harry hushed the words his fiancé couldn't get out with a teenage-like kiss. A snog. He showed full eagerness and no caution, forcing them both two years back in time when Louis had a prostate, a raging sex drive and will at any moment. But it just wasn't the same.

"Won't you miss me?" Harry pressed, flicking his thumb over Louis' cock that refused to harden. "I could make you so happy. I could marry you and have children with you, live with you and our kids in Stockholm. I'd take care of you always. I'll be whoever you want me to be, I'd follow you anywhere. LA, New York City, Paris - I'd go anywhere with you."

"Harry, you're--"

"You'd miss me." He was crying again, tears wasting away onto the pillow, the heat of his frustrations fogging up the air between them. "You'd miss me, Lou. You would miss me, wouldn't you?"

"You know I will."

"Then don't go." Harry shoved a second finger inside Louis' entrance, earning a groan of discomfort. He bit a lovebite onto the boy's chest, pitifully irritating the skin as he pumped Louis faster. "Stay here with _me_. Stay here, I'll never hurt myself again, I'll never lie to you. Marry me, okay? We'll invite everyone, I'll take my sister--"

"Harry, stop."

"I've done everything you asked! I don't ask you for anything!" His eyes were red with sadness, anger, sleep. His entire face was the face of torture. "Please, I'm begging you, I'm fucking begging you, Louis! Don't go without me!"

Louis reached round back, bearing the difficulty, as he pulled Harry's fingers out of him. "You know I'll miss you," he stressed, his eyes watering. "You can miss me, too."

  
Harry hid his face against Louis' chest, looking flustered and betrayed.

"I know I ask for too much, and I'll be forever grateful for everything you've done for me, but I don't need anything else. You've given me everything you've got... Love, I can't take anymore. All I want is for you to forgive me. I want you to forgive me and wipe that stupid, fake smile off your face. You don't have to pretend for me or for anyone. All I want is for you to forgive me and move on."

"But we were supposed--"

"I want you to do that for me. You can miss me if you want to. God knows I'll miss you."

"I'm engaged to you--"

"Can I do something for you?"

Harry sucked in a poisonous amount of air, puffing it out with a snivel. He nodded.

  
"Turn over."

He obeyed, like he always did, falling onto his other side.

Louis ineffectively fixed the duvet, sighing exhaustedly as he pressed against Harry's back, cuddling his tall, curled up body. He placed his hand on the boy's head and smoothly petted his hair.

Harry cried for the better part of the night, Louis laying behind him listening, thinking, wishing he could do something to make him stop because hearing his most favourite person cry over him wasn't worth it. His boy crying in the scariest kinds of fear and anxiety wasn't worth any closure or nipping satisfaction. If Louis could change his hopes in getting this sort of emotion from his fiancé, his friend, his real life lover, he would have done it in a heartbeat. But Harry was crying over him, and he could do nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.

"Finally find someone like you and I can't have you," Louis said once hearing the 23-year-old vegan receptionist peacefully snore. "You've no idea how angry I am. I fucking hate cancer so much."


	9. I'll be here a while

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cats have a sitxh sense but harry doesn't listen.
> 
> (you should not go there- thom hell)

Harry woke up in late afternoon. His face was awfully sore, dried out from the tear stains on his cheeks, and his head was pounding. He couldn't remember the last time he cried so much. It must have been when he was extremely young because he never cried. Especially not about Louis.

The room was warm, still. It was warm and dusty like it were summer, but it was of course fall, and all the leaves were nearly finished changing orange.

Harry sat up, rubbing the stiffness off his face as he kicked the blanket from his legs. He spotted Margaret pacing along the rug, kneading the carpet behind the door every time she passed it. Harry smiled.

"Come on, Marmalade." The boy got out of bed, scooping the cat up in his arms. "Toilet time."

Whilst using the restroom, and whilst Margaret used the cat box, Harry put on the kettle. He had himself a hot shower, singing loud and eccentrically, his uncommon music blasting throughout the flat. Usually Louis would phone him to say the music was too loud, that it'd woken him up from a good dream, but thinking about it, Louis mustn't have called him on this particular afternoon because he was happy.

Harry smiled to himself as he brushed his hair. He hadn't been genuinely happy in a long time, too, everything about his fiancé giving him such mixed emotions that he never knew when to smile. He chose to smile all the time no matter how he felt, for Louis liked his smile - he could tell.

Only, and it was hard for him to think of this, he was lying. Harry never considered himself a liar - never crossed his mind once - but when Louis looked at him the other night, he soon realised it. He'd been lying all along with those smiles he gave. Harry never recognised how it hurt. He'd not been hurt, been pleased, been anything but artificial and then, meeting Louis at hospital the day he learned about the cancer, all of these feelings came unto him like pounding winter wind. He was so confused, and smiling without truly being happy didn't spark pain within him until it gravely pained his lover.

Harry stepped out of the shower and opened the cupboard, grabbing his hair products to sculpt his curls. He wiped the mirror with his hand. His eyes were bloody red. That colour: it reminded him of before. Before he found love, reason, that godawful colour comforted him like a mother comforts her child. He didn't fancy that colour so much anymore - made him sick - but the cravings of safety and ease never went away. It haunted him terribly.

A towel round his waist and worn t-shirt in his hands to dry his hair, he took off the kettle that hardly left any water in it, pouring majority into one cup and just enough in another. He hung his shirt over his shoulders in order to fix tea; heavy milk, no sugar and little almond milk, little sugar.

It smelled sort of nice. Harry didn't much fancy that sort, Yorkshire, but that was all he had a taste for nowadays. His tongue was numb to the flavour, nose dormant to the tang, so accustomed to having it almost daily as it was Louis' favourite. He had no other tea on this particular afternoon, but it didn't seem to matter.

Harry placed the glittery cup with the most tea on the left side of the table and the silver one with the least tea on the right, arranging the tea set in the centre just in case they'd want more. The lad rummaged round the cupboards for Father John Misty, setting _O I Long To Feel Your Arms Around Me_ once finding the album and then he wiped off the counter where he'd spilt some milk and crumbled a bit of biscuit.

Louis was being lazy, is what Harry thought. Louis always came down for tea, even more when Harry was off from work. If he had to be gotten out of bed and smuggled down to the kitchen, then by all means, Harry would smuggle him.

Harry went up the stairs quickly before the tea could cool, inviting Margaret back in the room who jumped onto the bed the very moment she could.

He watched her cautiously creep across the mattress, placing a paw down softly and then retracting it, padding over toward Louis, incredibly heedful. Lurking on for a moment, staring the boy in the face, she crashed her nose against his lips, rubbing her cheek across his.

Harry watched Margaret from the door. His eyes wavered between her and his fiancé who still lay sleeping. Harry pursed his lips.  
The flesh on his arms began to crawl, his neck feeling hot and irritated, muscles inside his stomach distending. He scratched his head and went back downstairs.

Harry clicked the radio on, pulling out the chair to his tea as Father John Misty played for him. He could hear Margaret meowing from his room. It must have been because she wasn't too familiar with his flat yet, just starting her stay for the week until moving arrangements could be made. Louis was to live with him after the wedding and after they payed the last rent with Harry's nurses check and Louis' tips from his diner job. Harry never fancied the idea of Louis working, waiting on people and answering to angry pessimists, but Louis wasn't a person to take crassness from anyone. He was sarcastic with nearly every customer, and they both found it funny that he'd never been fired.

Harry had his outfit picked for the wedding. He ordered from one the expensive shops online, then got it tailored at another place that was also expensive. He was to wear a white tuxedo with a tailcoat and Oxfords. He didn't wear Oxfords much, owned only two pairs from when he was a teenager, but when he'd seen them - the most beautiful Oxfords in the world - he knew he would wear them on his wedding day. He bought them when he was twenty, and his tux matched perfectly.

Margaret's crying took Harry from his daydreams after a few minutes. When the next song began playing, he looked down at his arms that he absentmindedly started scratching. The sockets of his elbows were bleeding, old blisters welting and scabs bursting along the red marks imbedded into his skin. He'd scraped off hairs, impurities, goosebumps from shivers, carved open a healing scar from a vegetable chopping incident with his nail. He needed something destructive to do with his hands, and he most certainly couldn't throw the tea set at the wall.

Harry sat at the table for half an hour. He drank his tea and made himself another cup before the album ended, leaving the flat to go to Tesco.

People stared at him as he walked the aisles. They stared at him like he had a second head, and Harry didn't know what was so wrong with that in the first place. To them, he was a perturbed man in a wet a shirt that smelled of hair products, in shorts all too small for him. A barefoot man with cuts all over his naked arms, blood smeared on the shopping basket he carried and nearly everything within that and everything he touched and put back on the shelves. He looked like a confused man buying a plethora of meat and dairy, clueless as to what he was deciding to purchase. He looked crazy. Like an escape convict.

"Sir, you can't be in here like that," a short Spanish woman addressed him. "You're bloodying-up everything, you're scaring customers."

Harry stopped and looked down at her. "I'm..."

She eyed him worriedly. "Do I need to phone for an ambulance?"

"No."

"You sure, love?"

Harry nodded.

"Then can you please buy whatever it is you need and be on your way? Please?"

He swallowed dryly, dropping his gaze to his bare feet, his heart pounding with the fact that someone was talking to him without properly being prepared for it. He tucked his hair behind his ear and bit his lips. "I, uh... I think I'll be here a while. I'm shopping for my husband." He smiled easily.

The woman - Luna was her name - nodded, glancing down at Harry's ring finger that was absent of a ring. "I understand," she claimed. Agitatedly looking at his arms, she said, "But I'm required to get you escorted out... So, if you'll perhaps cover it."

Harry bought a jumper. And chicken, and pork, bacon, butter, beef, turkey, yoghurt, ice cream, biscuits, milk, steak, salmon, eggs. He bought all of the produce aisle and Yorkshire tea, and his arm was sore from lifting so much weight in one hand before switching to a cart. He didn't notice the pain, however, and if he did, wouldn't have minded.

There was a point as he reached his car coming out of Tesco where he stepped on broken plastic, making him whimper loudly in the lot. People turned to see what the fuss was, yet once all eyes were on him, Harry ripped the plastic out of his foot and put it in the recycle, hurrying to his car. The interior flooring was stained red once he arrived at the pet shop.

Harry adopted a puppy, which he was allergic to, and stocked up on cat food, litter, pet toys and treats. He thanked the vet who bandaged his swollen, surely infected, foot and was on his way to the record store.

There he picked up plenty albums he was meant to listen to before. He didn't know a lot of them, but a year ago someone had told him he'd fancy it. At the _F_ -section, he spotted a familiar man scanning the vinyls. He knew this man well. He was a man with greying hair and a beard, and Harry wouldn't have recognised him without rubber gloves if he hadn't seen that habitual, ancient thermos.

Harry placed the CDs in random slots once the man made eye contact with him, ignoring his name that was called after him as he pushed out the doors.

It was nightfall when he'd come home again. The groceries were spoiled, the puppy was restless and Harry's sneezing was violent. Nonetheless, he put away the meat and dairy and fixed the dog gate at the kitchen entryway, laying down newspapers by the bin and setting up the food bowls.

He could hear Margaret meowing upstairs, and with that noise, Chopin started barking at the ceiling.

Harry fisted his hair. He frantically paced the kitchen because of the disruptive sounds that made him feel badly about the sparkly cup of tea untouched on the table. Harry grabbed his keys and left to the flower shop. He bought all of the fresh red roses and white daisies, lots of peonies, too, and even when his car was filled to the top with plants, he shoved helium balloons in the trunk.

Harry came back half after six, and Chopin yapped at him as he struggled in with a bundle of balloons and flowers strangling him. Harry tied a pink balloon on the Tibetan Mastiff's collar, finding it difficult to see past his fur and folds. After setting the flowers and balloons up round the living room, he dumped out the tea and milk and refilled the tea set, putting the kettle back on. And he cooked chicken and mashed potatoes with so much butter and milk he could have vomited. But he didn't. He had no idea what it tasted like, as he was vegan, yet he made the most meat-eaters, dairy-consumers meal he could think of. The potatoes had bacon in them, and the chicken was stuffed with mozzarella and slathered in broth.

Harry felt faint from the revolting aroma of the chicken in the oven. He felt ill, even more that Chopin was jumping up his legs for a piece of bacon. He gave him a treat and a chew toy instead.

Harry waited for an hour. A long, disgusting hour waiting on a dead chicken to cook and waiting for the kettle to steam and waiting for Chopin to fall asleep and waiting for his scratches to scab over. He waited for nothing. Harry could have turned on the telly, read a book, danced to music, potted his flowers or played with the new puppy. But he didn't. He thought so hard about where else he should go. He was flooding his flat with things he didn't need, again, and he had spent all the money for Louis' rent. He didn't know what to do.

The receptionist stood up from the table. He filled the teacups with water once the kettle whistled, brewing tea and stirring in heavy milk and no sugar, little almond milk and little sugar. He put the sparkly cup on the left side of the table, the silver one on the right, and refilled the tea set.

The dead chicken wasn't near done. Harry looked round for something else to do. He took out some plates and set the table, and once that was done, he swept and mopped the floor, then washed all of the dishes, and after that he wiped down the counters, and once that was all finished, the oven beeped.

Except the tea was cold. He redid the kettle and the milk and the sugar and gave Chopin a biscuit.

Everything was perfect. Everything was shining with effort. The flowers were lively in the living room, the newspaper was changed, the tea was warm, Chopin was teething on a rubber squid, the table was arranged. All that was left was music. Father John Misty was still in the CD player. Harry merely had to press play. But if he did that, if he pressed play, he would have nothing else to do to waste time. All that needed to be done would be done and there would be nothing else he could do to procrastinate without officially seeming crazy to himself. He'd done so much already, and God was hitting him in the head for it. Harry only had one thing left to do once the music started playing, but he was too afraid.

A noise came from upstairs.

Chopin shot up and started barking at the discovery of a new sound, a sound that sounded like footsteps, and Harry was running up the stairs. His heart was beating sadistically, making his chest feel heavy like stone. Like diamonds. He was so, unbearably desperate to reach the top of the staircase that grew longer and longer with each stride.

Harry pushed open his bedroom door.

  
Margaret caught him in sight at the shelf, a book tossed open beside her of the floor. She stared at him, frozen in fear, then scampered beneath the bed.

Harry looked at where she ran to. He could see her still staring at him, and when he held the door open for her incase she'd want to eat, she backed farther beneath the bed.

It occurred to Harry that Margaret made the footstep noise. It mustn't have been anyone but her unless a person broke into the flat. But that wasn't the case. He'd thought, hoped, it was Louis who had been walking round up there, but, no. Louis was still sleeping. Except his chest wasn't moving.

There are no words to describe the way Harry felt. They are nonexistent. No one could have sat down with a dictionary and chosen definitions to explain the way emotion escaped and rushed back to him like a thousand knives. No person who ever lived could have possibly molded Harry's thoughts into words without degrading him. The words to form his intake on seeing Louis, laying on the bed turned away from him in the same exact position that Harry let him stay at, simply had never been invented. The derangement of Harry on the inside was inconceivably greater than that on the outside.

The boy approached the bed, slowly breathing or not breathing at all, and cautiously looked over his fiancé's shoulder. Margaret ran out of the room as Harry got down on his knees. He peered at Louis.

The beautiful lad's nose was bleeding, the pillow his head was lain upon horribly blood-soaked. Harry touched his room temperature shoulder, pulling him over onto his back, and he couldn't sustain the vibrance of the trauma. The stress of witnessing this with his own taken eyes ate him like a carnivore eats meat. It was easily the most viscous part of their relationship that was devouring him. Louis wasn't ill when he lost his hair, and he wasn't ill when he got surgery. He was never ill - not in Harry's eyes. Louis was always something else. Louis was a patchy beard and eye shadow and crop-tops and SnapBacks and cat hair. He was something that smelled like marijuana and tea, talked like a properly native Brit, sang like an alternative frontman, walked like royalty. Louis was always healthy - body, mind and soul - to Harry. But now, cancer was looking him dead in the face. Cancer kept a guise of victory, and he had Louis wear it.

  
Harry got to his feet and climbed upon the bed.

He had so many things to say, but he couldn't help but think them, if anything, but just as before, there weren't such English words. He sat there and looked at his best friend, at a face that was as peaceful as it gets.

The younger boy pulled off his shirt and wiped the mass amounts of blood off Louis' cheek, pushing his hair out of his pale face. "Lou," Harry whispered, touching Louis' skin that was stained pink.

When the boy didn't answer, Harry gently shook him.

"Louis, you've been sleeping all day," he told him, "and I made tea for you. Come with me, there are surprises downstairs."

Louis' mouth remained closed. He didn't grow a light in his eyes from the word _surprises_ , meaning more than one amazing gift that was for him, for his eyes didn't open. He still slept as if Harry couldn't be heard.

At first, he didn't believe it, which explained why he tried talking to someone who wouldn't talk back. He tried shaking the lad, coaxing him awake with tea and that sweet word _surprises_. He chose to ignore the blood behind Louis' head that was seeping into the mattress through the pillow, and once taking notice of the orangey wet spot hidden under the cover, he chose to ignore that, as well. But afterwards - after he let himself become open to possibilities for a tiny split second - his heart managed to break.

Harry ripped the cover off Louis' body and picked him up, holding him dearly to his chest. "I fucking told you not to go!" Harry scorned him, clutching the man's naked, empty vessel. "You couldn't do one thing for me! I've done so much for you, Louis, and you couldn't just wait for me! I wanted to go first!"

Margaret cried from downstairs. Chopin howled from the kitchen. Fall leaves hammered against the windows. The fan clattered the light strings. Harry yelled in denial at his boy in his hands. It was truly tragedy's symphony. And perhaps there was something that could be done about all of this, Harry figured, but there wasn't. This time, Harry couldn't buy everything that Louis could ever possibly want in hopes to make him happy, as that was the best medicine. He couldn't put on a mask to make Louis not wonder about any sadness he might have felt just to make Louis think of his own wellbeing. Harry could not pretend to be the most perfect version of man anymore. There was nothing he could do now to push Louis to keep going. And Harry had known since the afternoon that he was dead.

The flowers' fragrance was overtaken by the aroma of the dead chicken, even after the dog ate it.


	10. hang tight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the sun takes so long to rise which harry isn't very fond of.
> 
> (I cried for you- katie melua)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cant account for the anxiety this entire story has put me through, just knowing the direction I was bound to take it. writing this has been so fun and purposeful, I hope you all enjoyed and continue to enjoy the last chapter. thank you so much to everyone who's read, commented & liked :)
> 
> you should not go there- thom hell  
> you're smiling (but I don't believe you)- margaret glaspy  
> break- selah sue  
> over you- thom hell  
> for you- angus & julia stone  
> don't leave- Ane brun  
> hold you- thom hell  
> memorial- susanne sundfør  
> draw your swords- angus & julia stone  
> by & by- brett dennen  
> wonder- soap&skin  
> á bouche que veux-tu- brigitte  
> come home- amatorski, inne eysermens & sebastian van den brandon  
> follow you anywhere- monica heldal  
> kvällens sista cigarrett- veronica maggio  
> alone- thom hell  
> I cried for you- katie melua  
> this life- edward sharp & the magnetic zeroes  
> little lies- anna ternheim  
> back to love- Ingrid olava  
> back to you- margaret glaspy  
> all the time it takes to wait (Boston version)- rose cousins  
> of lovers and liars- family and friends

"I understand you and Louis were close."

"He was my husband."

"Was he? He never told me that."

Harry looked down at his fingers, picking at his cuticles.

"I wanted to apologise for your loss. I didn't expect him to pass away so suddenly, I'm sure you hadn't either. When he told me he didn't want to continue chemo, I felt like I failed him. Like if it had worked quicker, more effectively, he wouldn't have chosen to stop. But he was so joyous to have as company anyway. He was so, so funny and open, like the secrets he shared didn't matter, as if the entire world was his best friend. It makes me think about what we can all do to muster up courage like that, to just lay all of your broken pieces on the table and let people fix them for you.

"Louis was always so full of banter, pressing the call button and trying to order pizza and whatnot. And I remember... once, he pressed the call and asked for me, so I left all my work aside to see what he needed, and you know what he said?"

Harry didn't respond.

"He told me to go get you because he wanted applesauce."

The boy laughed softly; a small, slightly funny huff of air he had to get out.

"You know, he talked about you all the time. Every single week, it was 'Harry said' this, and 'Harry gave me' that. He showed off everything you gave him like trophies, and he would always stare at you if he let you hold one of them just to make sure you wouldn't run off with it or drop it. I swear, if he'd caught someone take something you gave him, he'd have pressed that call button and asked for security."

"No, he wouldn't."

Doctor Wright tilted his head.

"He didn't really like stuff," Harry explained. "At least not mine."

"That's not true. He really did fancy the gifts you gave him and your company. To be honest, he did a lot better in therapy when he got flowers."

"'Kay."

Doctor Wright looked at him worriedly, and the moment Harry caught that look of pity, he stood up, excused himself, and went to the reception desk.

That was his life for three years. He'd wake up, go to work, come home, feed Chopin, tend his plants, perhaps have dinner, sleep. He no longer showered regularly, skipping a day or sometimes two, and he didn't always remember to eat dinner. A lot of the time, he'd forget to eat all day, his mind so wrapped up in more important things that needed to be done like taking out trash, grooming his dog, filing paperwork, refilling the hummingbird feeder. His life was all routined and rewritten out on paper to make sense without anyone else in it. He worked up a schedule for everything, and showering and eating just didn't fit.

The main thing Harry didn't care to remind himself after a long, torturous, disgusting year of being alone was that his schedule became quick. Everything he did throughout the day whilst not buying things for Louis or checking up on Louis or phoning Louis was instinct - things he didn't even need to think about. He absentmindedly made room for less important things like eating, yet he still didn't, lying to himself, saying he'd forgotten to have breakfast when he'd surely seen the food machine as he passed it every foul day.

Needless to say, Harry lost a lot of weight over the first year. Keeping a vegan diet, he figured, was hard anyway. Inspecting food, buying specific organics, reading labels and the lot was perfectly annoying to him. But he wouldn't resort to meat and dairy just to satisfy his bother and family who asked him to. He just didn't eat all together because what was the point? He would die regardless of the hows and whys.

He didn't think to start eating again until he moved into a house. Chopin wasn't getting any smaller, and neither was Harry's mourning process. Moving was a big step for him - a forceful thing he did - but he needed a big backyard without a garden, for Chopin solved boredom easily. Harry needed a big house with a big yard in a big neighbourhood and big money to support his new lifestyle without someone else. What he needed microscopic dollops of was minutes in a day troubling himself with sadness. But even when those nasty, horrible days felt short, the nights were always longer, and days were never, ever worse than nights.

That big house and Tibetan Mastiff got him eating after settling in. He weighed in at 62 kilos before gaining a couple kilograms a week, though he got into the habit of eating his feelings, thus resulting in overeating. He worked the weight off, yet work was more like starve, and weight was more like muscle. After all of this - after all of the pushing and pulling at food - he turned into this fragile thing that never ate in front of anyone. He feared throwing away a meal or scarfing one down whilst people watched him, and there was a rumour at hospital in February that Harry was bulimic.

During the second winter, Harry cried everyday. Seeing snow and seeing so many cheerful little boys and girls building snowmen on his street, he felt bombarded by the idea of having children. It seemed like something he thought of so long ago, and it seemed like those children in his head were real and not only plans. He thought of them all the time when he was twenty-three, and when Louis died, it was as if they died with him. Crying over lost things he never had made him feel crazy, but he remembered, haplessly, that he and Louis thought of names. The remembrance of them made him cry in winter because Louis agreed to try for children on December 30th, and so Harry cried over lost things that he never had.

Mending bridges was hard. Once having a brutal, unforgivable fight with his stepfather, talking to his mum and sister became impossible. Gemma, however, didn't mind their stepdad's bleeding mouth, or even if she did, would never let that stand in the way of her relationships. She made the move to confront her brother about things that needed to be addressed, though confronting problems was something that she didn't do. She apologised for what she'd said to Harry years ago, and he, too, apologised. She was his one support from that point on, but one was better than no one.

Harry remembered, day by day, what it felt like to be lonely. To be lonely with no one lovely to look at and no one brilliant to converse with and no one there to tell him that he was worth everything and the stars - to _have no one_ \- sickened him. He recalled the claw of hopelessness ripping at his flesh the way that his nails did, the sour kiss from the lips of angst being unfathomably mothering, and the worship he earned from the grey matter for bleeding himself dry seemed to be the most terrifyingly relieving hug he could get. Being lonely was so much more than being a-lone. Harry was not alone; he was so alone. He was not very alone or a really alone or a bit alone or somewhat alone or too alone or alone at all. He was _so_ alone. He was lonely.

Loneliness was cradled in the strong arms of his worst nightmares. When one is truly lonely, everyone and everything round them goes invisible, and it's a hell they're in where the most triggering song is on repeat, where the world ends at the sidewalk, where one sees faces only existent in bad dreams. Harry's personal, lonely little hell had Louis' face broadcasted on billboards and missing person signs and display TVs and clothing advertisements and museum masterpieces and his name - his damning, mouthwatering, breathing simple name - choked out every other _L_ name on Earth.

Harry could still smell the chicken on Chopin's breath as he vividly remembered submerging into the everlasting pool of loneliness.

The night he found Louis dead, so close behind him like it'd only been a week or two since, the police surprised him at the door.

The emergency line was called by a neighbour who heard Harry crying. She hadn't called because of the noise, however. She called because she'd seen Harry go in and out of his flat all day with nasty scratches on his arms.

Harry watched the officers cover Louis' body in tarpaulin and lift him out the front door where he would never come back through again. And all of his things - his shoes, his shirts, his phone, his toothbrush - Harry watched get put into plastic bags.

"Why are you taking everything?" Harry asked one of the officers. "You can't do that, it's supposed to stay here. I-If you take it all--"

The officer flicked through his notepad. "We have questions for you regarding Louis Tomlinson's death."

"He had cancer," the boy sulked. "He died from it last night."

"He died sixteen hours ago in your residents and we weren't called until now, and it was a neighbour who called us."

Harry couldn't understand what was happening, what the policeman was trying to say. He went through and through - thoroughly through- what he was telling him and all he made of it was that he surely couldn't have been the reason Louis died. He couldn't have been responsible for his fiancé's death because if he was, he'd have punished himself for it long before the police could arrive.

But Harry went with them to the station. He let them ask their questions which he willfully answered. Regardless of his reason, he felt attacked. They would ask him if he had a romantic relationship with Louis, of which he'd confirm, and they'd pretend that they didn't think it was funny and later ask why he hadn't rang an ambulance in the morning. If they'd slept in the same bed the prior night, then surely Harry must have realised straightaway that his fiancé died in his sleep beside him. The agents didn't tell him this, but they thought he killed Louis.

"You must be proud of yourselves. I know I would be if I were you and you were me and lost someone you love. If I were you, I'd definitely feel accomplished for slandering--"

"It isn't slander," one officer would say.

"Yes, it is, _sir_. The scratches on my arms weren't from my husband. I did that to myself because I'm suicidal, which you've read proof of, after finding out this morning that he died in my arms. So, no, you're not slandering me _anymore_ by accusing me of murdering my husband, but slandering me because I'm gay. If I were you, I'd feel good about myself, too. But I'm not you and I'm not homophobic. And neither is your boss."

Harry had known the chief of the department for years. When he'd first started at the hospital, the man had been shot in the shoulder and abdominal aorta - a man whom Harry had to tend to for weeks. He'd help him with walking, changing his sheets, and would always be the one to empty the drainage. He'd told Harry once when he was doing this - emptying the drains - that he was just his son's type. Of course, Chief Logan was heavily sedated, but that didn't stop him from trying to set Harry up with his son.

The police let him go that night, and the moment he got into his mum's car after demanding all of Louis' stuff back, he cried on her shoulder.

It'd been three years since then.

Harry scratched his neck, writing something down on a post-it that he was to remind Jarrod Richard, pneumonia patient, before checking out. His back was hurting, and so was his neck, because Chopin slept in his bed during the night and kicked Harry onto the floor.

He sat in the chair behind the reception desk hearing small talk in the waiting room. Someone was breathing like they had rocks in their mouth, gravelly and fixed, but she had an oxygen tank and was very old. A baby was crying, as well.

Harry looked at the glossy, teal photo frame his mum gave him when he moved out of hers sat at his side of the desk. The actual photo was taken at his flat, which must had been almost five years ago, at the garden. Harry was happy that day. He was behind the camera posing for effect regardless as he took a shot of Louis digging up a worm. Louis was so proud of that worm. They'd spent so long planting peonies and carnations and picking weeds from the sidewalk that he was practically delirious once finding it. He waggled the worm in front of the camera, holding it up like a reward for his hard work that day, and Harry luckily stole that moment. He felt awful looking at the photo at his desk after all those years, because he'd told Louis he couldn't rebury it - the worm would have eaten the plants, so they threw it on the neighbour's roof.

A boy walked into the building then. He was following a man, a rather calm man who was obviously impatient, and dragging his feet. The boy must have been about nineteen, maybe twenty, and was acting a nervous child.

"Hi," the elder one said.

Harry eyed the cigarette between the man's lips until he removed it and dabbed it out in the ashtray. "Can I help you?" Harry asked him very, very monotonously.

"Yeah, my son's got a tumor."

Harry bit off a spot on his tongue, blood starting to pool in his mouth. But he remained professional. He casually spit out the blood in a napkin along with his gum.

"It isn't a bloody tumor," the boy argued, though sounded completely defeated anyway.

His father ignored him. "Can he fill something out?"

Harry got a clipboard and pen, handing it to the man who handed it to his son. Harry swallowed the blood that gathered in his mouth again. "My name's Harry if you have any questions."

The boy followed his father to the sitting area as Harry's gaze followed him. He watched the boy sit several seats away from his dad, writing along the lines of the paper. Harry would watch him fill out his name and age and mark that he was born in Europe. Instead of minding his business to do his work like he should have done when the boy looked up at him across the room, Harry merely put his chin in his hand and kept staring.

The boy scratched his forehead and continued the clipboard, handing it to his father when he got flustered.

Harry twirled a lock of hair round his finger as he decided to look back at the photo of Louis on the desk. Louis was wearing the shirt Harry gave him - the one he'd cut up - and his Snapback from Tokyo that day. He did eyeliner in the morning, though it was running down his face once the sun came out. Nevertheless, he looked amazing. Like he always did.

"Excuse me."

Harry looked at the boy in front of him and held his hand out for the clipboard. Aaron Anzivino was his name. He was, in fact, nineteen, had a severe nut allergy and took Methylphenidate. Harry supposed he had ADHD, but he might have been wrong.

"Are you from England?" he wondered just of curiosity.

"I'm from Italy. But I grew up here."

He took one good look at him, Aaron, before taking his post-its and beginning to jot things down. "Thanks, honey," he mumbled, spitting more blood into another tissue. "Someone will call for you in a bit. Hang tight."

It'd come out in a rush. Harry didn't realise what he called Aaron until he flushed and went back to his father. Harry continued to scribble onto the post-its, sticking them in rows on his side of the desk as he picked up the phone to call for a replacement. He stuck notes all along the edge of the countertop, reminders of what needed to be done: a way to organise things one last time. He wrote down _For Mum - Chopin_ on a post-it and stuck it on his photo of Chopin. He wrote down _For Jay - Margaret_ and stuck it on the computer. He wrote _Pour Famille - plants & photos_. He wrote for nearly everything in his flat, addressing them to people dearest to him like Gemma and his mum, the girls and Ernest. And only when he finished writing down all the things he could remember did he stand up from his chair.

Mister Anzivino started talking to Aaron in Italian across the room, to whom which Aaron would reply, but spoke in English instead. Harry didn't hear much of what they talked about, exiting the building like he had somewhere more important to be.

Harry went outside. It was fall; the leaves had already finished changing and the wind was restless and brisk. There was a freshness in the air, an aroma that wasn't artificial like that of the hospital, that made Harry feel so absolutely happy to be alive.

He shrugged his jumper on over his scrubs (though he only wore the shirt and not the bottoms) and flicked his hair out of his face before walking with a skip in his step. There was lovely music ringing in his ears, but there was no music playing in reality and that annoyed him. Though his slight annoyance was immensely overpowered by his thankfulness for actually, first in years, enjoying the song he was thinking of. Harry hummed the tune as he followed the course to the back lot, then round to the recreation field behind the building. There were few patients out and about chatting and having snacks, sitting on the benches just to say they went outside that day, and paid him absolutely no mind.

Perhaps Harry could have gone home and had himself tea. Yorkshire would have tasted heavenly that afternoon, ignoring the fact that it'd cause his blistered tongue to swell, but he was all out of milk. And Harry couldn't have Yorkshire without milk. As well as the almond milk, he couldn't go home for tea without playing with Chopin for a while, which he didn't feel like doing then. He thought - just a little thought - that that great big Tibetan Mastiff's sweet face would have had him stay much longer than he needed to.

Harry spit blood into the grass, wiping his mouth with his jumper whilst moving to the left side of the field instead of the right side where all of the patients gathered. He paced for a second once he got there. He was looking for something. It dawned on him that someone could have taken it, being behind the hospital for as long as it was, but it was there, just as he knew it would be. Harry moved the stones hidden under the brush, snatching and trailing a long, worn rope back to the field.

The rope was itching his skin, irritating the hives that Chopin gave him weekly since he adopted him, yet he tried not to make a fuss. There was something else he had to look for along with rope, and it didn't take long to find. Harry remembered exactly where it would be - the tree that all of the patients and children liked to climb in their free time. What was in need of finding was a limb; a sturdy one that could support not only a couple of kids, but an adult. And Harry discovered that limb.

The receptionist swooped his hair over to one side, rubbing sleep from his eyes for he was, in fact, sleepy. He threw the rope up as hard as he could into the tree like it were a worm, and yanked on it repeatedly, working up the leaves in the branches until soon deciding it was steady.

"Hello, boy!"

Harry looked over his shoulder at a wandering old woman childishly - almost stupidly - waving at him. He grinned and waved back, blowing to her a quick kiss off his flingers just to make her giggle. Once she was lost in the pinkish sunset, Harry put his soft, gentle palms on the tree and started to climb.

The hospital looked a lot smaller the higher he went. It was a big tree and it was a big hospital and Harry was suddenly a lot bigger, too. It had been a long, long time since he didn't feel so small. So insignificant amongst all the people and continents and empty water space on the planet, but at that moment, tall and unmistakable to the eye, the whole world was present. It was all there in his grasp, just a fingertip away - he had his entire life in his hands - and he could do all he wanted with it.

Harry crawled to the limb where the rope was. Pulling his messy hair into a half-up, he sat with his legs dangling on either side of the branch and slipped off his jumper. It fell into the grass, but he didn't mind. He wouldn't quite need it anymore, or anything else for that matter. He sat there, random lanky legs swaying in the trees, as he conjured up a noose. His fingers went in and out the knots as easily as shoelaces, like he hadn't possibly made enough as a kid, even if he made plenty.

Harry swiped his shirt on his tongue to rid the blood that began tasting like browned iron. The flavour in his mouth churned his nerving stomach for the time being, but that time was just a bit. He snapped the knot once it finished. The noise sounded thick, felt robust in his hands, and he imagined if it were possible to quickly lasso up a few apples if the trees carried any. But they only carried Harry and some birds.

He looped the opposite end of the rope round the branch and slid the noose over his head. He tightened the knot on his throat, snug and fitted. And as the wind picked up, Harry flipped over on the limb, holding on with his arms loosely wrapped round the bark as he let his burden of a body dangle.

It was a game he played. "Tie a Noose" is what he called it, invented by he and his childhood friends on a half-day of school; they found rope in one of their parents' garages, and because Harry knew how to make a noose, he tied one up and threw it in a tree. They'd take turns with it, the noose, to see if they could all hang on for a full minute. The thing was: they wouldn't secure the rope. Because potentially hanging oneself was dangerous, the boys let the rope waggle, but when Harry's turn came, he'd attach the rope and prove to everyone how fearless he was.

Childhood had slipped away, though. Harry was soon to be twenty-seven years old, and the rest of time wouldn't slow down for him. Swinging by a branch at the high point of a tree as he watched the sun go down didn't manipulate the remainder of the day into freezing or infinity. Watching the sun was the most explicit way of telling time for thousands of years, and Harry believed that. His eyes trained on the last snippet of daylight had him questioning how long he'd been up there. How long had he been in that tree? How long had he suffered through watering ill people like plants? How long had he been living on his own? How long had he been living without Louis? The final fraction of the day was nearly gone, racing away just like every moment Harry could remember along with the ones he couldn't. The warm aesthetics of the pink sky against the blue sky that held onto the darker blue sky, Harry remembered, didn't exist without the drifting sun and the ocean. Like the profound beauty of the day, his time with Louis was over. It would be over and done with once the sun finished setting, and Harry would be there, dangling like a fool, waiting for it to rise on the other side as an even brighter shelter. But he could never wait that long. The sun was kissing him and everything he knew goodbye, taking the rest of what ignited Harry's world with it.

Harry put his chin on the tree. His heart was hurting. Again. He couldn't help but acknowledge this game he was playing whilst recollecting what Louis asked of him. He was supposed to forgive him and move on. But what was he to do when he'd done so much and Louis so little? He held Harry to his slowly beating chest: that is what Louis gave to him. He wouldn't wait for fortunes with that memory of comfort on his mind.

Harry pressed his forehead against the tree, rubbing his emotions all over the bark so that he wouldn't throw up his anticipation. His arms were hurting, so he let go.

"Hello! Boy!" the old lady called from across the field. "It's dark now, get down from there!"


End file.
